Its Next Generation of IT Solutions
Microsoft announced recently that it has completed preparations for the global and local launch of the next generation of infrastructure and application platform products, including Microsoft Windows Server 2008, Microsoft Visual Studio 2008 and Microsoft SQL Server 2008. Working with global and local partners, the leading software company has planned the major launch to take place through a series of events and activities in Khobar, Riyadh, and Jeddah between 1st and 5th of March.
Organizations using these products can drive greater business continuity with improved security, enable innovation while controlling costs, and empower people to make better decisions with data. The three products provide a platform for core IT infrastructure and application platform technologies that can easily adapt to changing business conditions – an initiative Microsoft calls Dynamic IT. To begin realizing the benefits of Dynamic IT, customers can deploy the new products to power next generation web applications, enable better business decisions and return savings to the business by using technologies, such as virtualization.
The theme of the events, “Heroes Happen Here,” puts the spotlight on customers and partners who make use of the technologies every day to address business challenges and develop cutting-edge applications.
“IT professionals and developers have told us that they spend too much time and money on managing existing systems and not enough on investing in new innovations that will make them more competitive. Taking that feedback to heart is at the core of our new wave of products,” said Dr. Khaled Al-Dhaher, General Manager of Microsoft in the kingdom. “The overwhelming response from thousands of IT professionals and developers in Saudi Arabia and around the world on this new platform has been that it will simplify management and offer the most secure enterprise platform and tools we have ever delivered.”
More than 20 global and local partners are supporting the launch and participating in the upcoming events. "To ensure comprehensive solutions are available for our customers, we have been preparing for this launch together with many Microsoft partners including HP, AMD, Dimension Data and ACS who developed innovative solutions for clients to get maximum benefit and added value from our new software", Al-Dhaher added.
In the context of global preparations for the launch, Scott Farand, HP Vice President, Servers Software, indicated that HP has worked closely with Microsoft over the past three years to ensure customers can rely on the technologies of HP, Windows Server 2008 and SQL 2008 to build an effective IT infrastructure that leads their efforts to success.
Meanwhile, the new products have been warmly received by IT experts across Saudi Arabia, as stated by Ashraf Al-Madhoun, Server & Tools Product Manager at Microsoft. He added, "We visited many companies which had installed and tested the trial versions of these products thereby joining over four million software reviewers, IT professionals and developers around the world."
According to Microsoft, Windows Server 2008 and Visual Studio 2008 are now available to customers; while SQL Server 2008 is going through the final development stage and will be ready by mid 2008. The trail version of the three products can be downloaded from www.microsoft.com/saudi/hhh
