CA announced it would provide broad-based support for Windows Server 2008, SQL Server 2008, and Visual Studio 2008 across its product lines to enable Microsoft customers to effectively manage, govern, and secure even the most complex enterprise environments. CA’s solutions are intended to provide “essential functionality for cost-effectively maintaining the performance, reliability, security, and compliance of this foundation and the business services that it supports.” Most of the CA products had a system security aspect to them.
Our Take: We’ve never really understood why CA and Microsoft don’t work closer together. They’re not really direct competitors and CA has the kind of software that doesn’t generally interest Microsoft. Maybe this is the beginning of a long friendship?

IBM announced a new, integrated set of software offerings that provide a process automation and Service Management infrastructure to make better use of the mainframe’s vast power for tackling business challenges. The new IBM Tivoli Service Management Center for System z, part of the IBM Service Management portfolio, is intended to automate the management of complex IT disciplines and allows policy-driven processes such as incident and problem management, change and release, discovery, and business service management to be seamlessly managed from either mainframe or distributed computing environments.
Our Take: There’s no doubt that customers stand to benefit from a single, integrated view of critical applications hosted on their mainframes, discovering, controlling, and showing the linkages between IT assets and business applications. The only problem is that many computing environments have become so complicated that it may be impossible to get them entirely under control.

MICROSOFT announced what the company is calling the “next generation of infrastructure and application platform products,” including Windows Server 2008, Microsoft Visual Studio 2008, and Microsoft SQL Server 2008. The launch represents a major milestone to help customers on the road to “Dynamic IT,” Microsoft’s initiative to help customers optimize their people, processes, and technology, and in turn position IT as a strategic asset for their business. The products are intended to “help customers more efficiently and securely manage their entire infrastructure and move to a virtualized environment while also delivering business intelligence and next-generation Web experiences to boost business results.”
Our Take: We’re amused by Microsoft’s ability to tack paragraphs of pure biz-blab and buzzwords to the press materials of what’s obviously a maintenance release.

ORACLE announced updates to the Oracle Enterprise Content Management Suite, a component of Oracle Fusion Middleware. The enhancements are intended to improve the ability of organizations to secure content by automating encryption of documents stored in Oracle Universal Content Management through a new integration with Oracle Information Rights Management. Among other things, this is intended to help prevent unauthorized access to electronic documents and emails – even if they have been downloaded, emailed, copied, or transferred outside the corporate network.
Our Take: We knew that Big Brother was watching – but watching us on our own computers when we’re not even on the corporate Website. Brrrrr…. The “paperless office” is beginning to sound more oppressive by the minute!

SAP announced that SAP and Intel intend to introduce a ground-breaking offering on the Intel Xeon-based systems via original equipment manufacturer (OEM) and hardware system providers based on SUSE Linux Enterprise from Novell and the database SAP® MaxDB. The offering targets midsize companies in the manufacturing, service, and trade industries and directly addresses the demands in these market segments for quick and easy implementation, and tailored yet scalable solutions at predictable costs.
Our Take: Now, if SAP could get the PC guys to stick their software on Windows-enabled machines, that would be news. But despite all the anti-trust activity, Microsoft still has a hammerlock on the PC manufacturing business, so don’t hold your breath.