Microsoft plans joint launch of Windows Server, SQL Server, Visual Studio

DENVER – Microsoft plans to launch the next versions of Windows Server, SQL Server and Visual Studio during a single event next Feb. 27, the company announced today at its annual Worldwide Partner Conference.

COO Kevin Turner used his keynote to say the joint launch of Windows Server 2008, Visual Studio 2008 and SQL Server 2008 will be the biggest enterprise product launch in company history. The launch will take place in Los Angeles with other satellite launches going on simultaneously around the world.

Turner told partners that the combination of the three products would represent the foundation for Web-based services, virtualization and business intelligence.

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DENVER – Microsoft plans to launch the next versions of Windows Server, SQL Server and Visual Studio during a single event next Feb. 27, the company announced today at its annual Worldwide Partner Conference.

COO Kevin Turner used his keynote to say the joint launch of Windows Server 2008, Visual Studio 2008 and SQL Server 2008 will be the biggest enterprise product launch in company history. The launch will take place in Los Angeles with other satellite launches going on simultaneously around the world.

Turner told partners that the combination of the three products would represent the foundation for Web-based services, virtualization and business intelligence.

Microsoft officials, however, said they had no other updates on the Windows Server 2008 release schedule, most notably the server add-on called Windows Server Virtualization (WSV).

The company has said in the past that its new virtualization technology, including hypervisor technology would ship 180 days after Windows Server 2008.

In May, Microsoft cut three features from WSV including a major feature called Live Migration, which lets users move workloads between virtualized servers without any down time.

Turner told the 8,000 attendees that for the first time since analyst firm IDC began tracking server-spending growth that Windows Server grew faster than Linux.

“We are winning share and that is a big deal,” said Turner.

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