By Julie Bort, Network World | PT

Exchange and SharePoint to be revamped for multitenant versions

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Network World senior editor John Fontana has sent Microsoft Subnet this guest blog. He is reporting from the IDG editors meeting with Microsoft in

Redmond this week. Tim O'Brien, senior director of Microsoft platforms (pictured right), laid out for IDG editors the services efforts at Microsoft. He said Microsoft is working on multi-tenant versions of Exchange and SharePoint that can be used by Microsoft and partners to offer scalable services. He did not have a timeframe for those versions, but did confirm the products will need to be re-architected. He said for SharePoint, the Groove client would become a more integrated with client.

One of the important features there is the synchronization engine for online and offline use of data. He, however, did not give a timeframe for that to come to market. He said synchronization between on-premise software and online software would get more definition tomorrow during a session at the Web 2.0 Expo. O'Brien mentioned the release of CRM Online, which was re-architected as multi-tenant architecture that allows a one (instance) to many (users) deployment model. He also talked about building block services such as identity that are in the works to complement current services such as storage in the cloud and SQL data services.

O'Brien says the option for IT to run software local or as a service will bring flexibility that will ease the headache of operations. He also threw out an interesting statistic about service scale saying Windows Update pushes out a petabyte of data per month.