Windows Server 2008

Intel’s announcement yesterday of its new Xeon 7500 server CPU platform (previously known as the Nehalem EX) is generating a good deal of optimism, especially when its contrasted with new features in Windows Server 2008 R2 that take advantage of all that these new silicon marvels have to offer. The new platform’s potential in the realms of performance and mission-critical reliability are truly awesome as this video details (Silverlight required).

We had a few of our own server experts at the Intel launch event and both were happy with what they saw. Scott Rosenbloom, Group Product Manager for Windows Server, had this to say (Silverlight required)…

…and Eric Jewett, Director at Windows Server Marketing, had kind words as well (Silverlight).

And our guys aren’t the only pundits preening ‘bout the new processors (just the handsomest). Check out happy thoughts from analysts at PC Magazine, InfoWorld and ServerWatch as well. (And if you’re grousing over all the Silverlight requirements, do yourself a favor and check out this brand new, freely available, Silverlight desktop player.)

Oliver Rist

Product Manager

Windows Server Marketing

I wanted to first introduce myself to the Windows Server community as an upcoming contributor in my new role as the Director of Program Management for Windows Server.  Some of you may know me from my previous role as the Product Unit Manager for Forefront Threat Management Gateway 2010.   I wanted to take a moment today and highlight our re-launch of our Common Engineering Criteria web site for all Microsoft server products.  The Microsoft Common Engineering Criteria (CEC) program establishes a set of engineering requirements across all Microsoft server products with our goal to reduce the overall total cost of ownership (TCO) through improved integration, manageability, security, reliability, and other critical infrastructure attributes that are expected by our customers.  You can get a short overview of CEC and the scorecards for all currently evaluated products from our main page.  I hope you will find not only the site content appealing and easy to navigate, but also the data on all the evaluated products helpful in making purchasing and product decisions for your environment.

I hope you find the new site valuable, for more details you can download the CEC whitepaper.  I look forward to more posts and interesting content in the future.

David B. Cross

Director of Program Management

Windows Server