At 12:53 PM +0000 4/22/05, eGovINDIA@yahoogroups.com wrote:

INDIATIMES NEWS NETWORK[ THURSDAY, APRIL 21, 2005 03:18:54 PM]

http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/articleshow/msid-1084496,curpg- 1.cms

In a marked departure from its earlier stand, Microsoft has promised to add Linux support for the first time in one of its products. Microsoft's Server 2005 product will run on non-Windows machines, including Linux.

Microsoft had always rebuffed any requests for interoperability with products it didn't make, particularly Linux, an open-source giant, which it has long considered a threatening alternative.

On Wednesday, Microsoft head Steve Ballmer promised to add Linux support to Virtual Server 2005 Service Pack 1, which will be shipped by the end of the year, because, he said, users need to manage heterogeneous networks.

Ballmer was giving his keynote address at the Microsoft Management Summit in Las Vegas. Microsoft official Bill Anderson demonstrated how Red Hat Linux could run on Virtual Server 2005.

Ballmer said the company had to soften its stance based on customer demand for virtualisation, which helps multiple instances of a piece of software, such as an operating system, run on one single machine.

This technology helps customers cut down on the number of computers or servers they need to power their businesses, a cost-cutting measure that most enterprises crave.

To that end, Ballmer said Virtual Server 2005 Service Pack 1 (SP1), which is now in beta, offers developers the ability to put the company's new 64-bit compatibility and improved performance to the test on editions of Windows Server 2003 x64.

R2 On The Horizon

He further said Microsoft was adding other virtualisation improvements, including support for x64 editions of Windows Server 2003, and a Microsoft Operations Manager management pack for Virtual Server that provides a central console. Microsoft plans to license, royalty-free, its Virtual Hard Disk (.vhd) file format.

He said Microsoft would add other critical features around the time the company releases Longhorn Server in 2007, but said those features will not come with Longhorn.

Ballmer also said the forthcoming release of Windows Server, codenamed R2, would provide support for WS-Management, a Web services protocol the company is working on with Sun, AMD, Dell, BMC and others. The protocol will support inter-operability, and he showed a demo using Microsoft Operations Manager to troubleshoot problems on Sun servers, one running the Windows OS and the other Solaris.

WS-Management is scheduled to be included in Windows Server 2003 R2, available later this year.