ORLANDO - Enterprise-wide operating system customers purchase their licenses in bulk, and for them, the value of their subscriptions needs to be periodically refreshed. So Microsoft has been looking for ways to infuse Vista - which won't be upgraded substantially within the next 12 months, even though customers purchase annual licenses - with periodic value increases.

This is why one of this week's TechEd announcements is especially important: Software Assurance licensees will soon be receiving a Windows utility called System Center Desktop Error Monitoring as part of the Desktop Optimization Pack (MDOP) they receive with their licenses.

As Microsoft's senior product manager for MDOP, Winni Verhoef, explained to BetaNews at TechEd 2007 this morning, this product will receive the System Center branding, but will not require licensees to be System Center customers.

The Error Monitoring tool will enable administrators to produce reports of aggregated error-related activity from multiple Windows clients throughout a domain or forest, so they can diagnose problems regardless of whether end users actually report those problems - or whether they actually know what the problems are.

As Microsoft has learned from experience, users tend to perceive Windows as slow by design, not necessarily slow as the result of a serious problem. SA licensees should expect to see the Error Monitoring tool to be made available July 1.

Stay in touch with BetaNews for more on what's going on with MDOP, including news about another of its components, the SoftGrid application virtualization client.

BETA CAPSULE Desktop Optimization Pack

A set of utilities announced last October for delivery to Windows Vista Enterprise customers who have purchased Software Assurance contracts.

One of the utilities in MDOP helps enterprises take inventory of what software is actually installed throughout the network, while another adds versatility to group policy management.

One of the more intriguing components of MDOP is Softgrid, an application virtualization system Microsoft acquired last year. What it will do is make it possible for thinner Vista clients (yes, there are such things) to run full applications through the server, in a virtualization envelope on the client system. This way, the application itself need not be installed on the client. With the exception that SoftGrid-supporting software runs in the "Aero Classic" style (without the semi-transparent window borders), general users may not be able to notice any difference.

This changes the whole meaning of "seat" with respect to software installation. Years ago, software licenses pertained to their installations on hard disk drives (typically local drives). But with the advent of Windows XP, licenses had to be changed to a per-user basis, since any number of users could take advantage of a single installation, especially through network storage.

With application virtualization, this could change yet again, since a user may actually be able to run a program through this system without it ever actually needing to be pre-installed for that user on any local or remote drive.

Analysts see Desktop Optimization Pack as either a necessary step or an acquiescence on Microsoft's part, in order to continually refresh the business customer value of Software Assurance contracts in the face of operating systems that don't change all that often these days, except to implement major service packs.

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