Oracle presented on Tuesday a comprehensive roadmap for its recently acquired BEA Systems middleware technologies, making BEA's application server Oracle's strategic Java container and pledging continued support for BEA customers.

In a 105-minute Web conference, Oracle President Charles Phillips and, primarily, Oracle Fusion Middleware Senior Vice President Thomas Kurian covered product plans in the SOA, development tools, identity management and other middleware spaces. Oracle closed its $8.5 billion merger with BEA in late-April.

BEA customers will have investment protection, Phillips said. "There will be no forced product migration at all," he said.

Phillips cited SOA synergies and said Oracle, with BEA in tow, becomes number one in the middleware market.

"We want to provide a complete platform for developing [and] deploying SOA-based applications," Phillips said. The acquisition of BEA made sense because BEA is a pioneer in middleware and a company that "really got SOA," he said.

Oracle's plan categorizes BEA products into three areas:?

* Strategic products, which will be adopted immediately with limited re-design into the Oracle Fusion Middleware platform. * Continue and converge products, which are BEA products being incrementally re-designed to integrate with Fusion Middleware. These products will continue to be developed and maintained for at least nine years. * Maintenance products, which BEA had put on an end-of-life status and will get continued maintenance for five years. One example is BEA's Beehive applications framework.

Perhaps the biggest -- but most expected -- revelation was in the application server arena. The BEA Weblogic Server Java application server "becomes Oracle's strategic J2EE container," Kurian said. It has been integrated with Oracle technologies like Oracle TopLink for Java persistence and Oracle Coherence grid capabilities.

Application server modernization plans call for modularization based on the OSGi standard. However, "Oracle's own application server continues development going forward," said Kurian.

SOA plans call for integrating the Oracle ESB (enterprise service bus) with BEA Aqualogic Service Bus. This provides a best-of-breed offering for customers, said Kurian. Also, the former BEA Aqualogic Enterprise Repository becomes Oracle's SOA governance repository; with it, SOA artifacts can captured shared and change-managed across the lifecycle, Kurian said.

Oracle Service Registry will serve as a UDDI-compliant registry to publish and register services.

The Oracle Data Integration product continues as Oracle's entry in data integration and Oracle BPEL Process Manager provides SOA service orchestration. For event processing, BEA's Weblogic Event Server will be merged with Oracle Complex Event Processor.

"We're going to combine these two products into a unified event processing engine," said Kurian.

BEA Weblogic Integration will pick up Oracle SOA technologies like adapters from BPEL Process Manager.

Oracle also plans to strengthen BEA's Tuxedo transaction processing software. Tuxedo is geared for C, C++, and Cobol applications as well as customers looking to migrate off of mainframes. Additionally, the company views the JRockit Java Virtual Machine acquired from BEA and the BEA Liquid VM virtual machine, featuring hypervisor technology, as critical going forward, Kurian said.

In business process management, the Oracle BPA (Business Process Analysis) designer will be converged with BEA Aqualogic BPM Designer on a common BPM and BPEL-compliant metadata model to move information between these two tools.

In development tools, Oracle is focused on offering a single integrated development environment and a single metadata model. Oracle JDeveloper continues as Oracle's integrated toolset and Oracle ADF (Application Development Framework) stays the company's model view controller framework.

Also, Oracle Eclipse-based software assets and components from the BEA Workshop software development platform will be integrated into a single product called Oracle Eclipse Pack.

Portal plans call for converging BEA Weblogic Portal with Oracle's WebCenter framework. For identity management, Oracle Aqualogic Enterprise Security becomes Oracle Entitlements Server. With it, authorization policies can be centralized for enterprise applications and Web services.

Oracle also is integrating BEA telecommunications products, such as BEA WebLogic SIP Server, with Oracle technologies.

An Oracle reseller was pleased with Oracle's efforts, saying users still have choice. "The end users will be able to pick and choose the product that best fits their environment," said Sastry Tauravai, CTO at Bluenog. Oracle was able to formulate its plans for BEA products in a short time, he said.

Oracle's developer resource, the Oracle Technology Network, will merge with BEA Dev2Dev and BEA Arch2Arch programs for developers and architects. Oracle plans to hold 70 customer-oriented events in various locations beginning July 15 as well as having a focus on BEA at the Oracle OpenWorld conference in San Francisco beginning September 21.

Oracle's list of Fusion Middleware products can be found on this Web page.

Despite a slow entry into the market, Intel's mobile chips could dominate the space in the long run by offering value and software compatibility that competitors like Arm will find tough to match, according to an Intel official.

By building x86 architecture into mobile devices, Intel wants to build compatibility to standardize software use across PCs and mobile devices, said Pat Gelsinger, Intel's senior vice president, in a press event on Monday to celebrate the company's 40th anniversary.

After riding the wave of success for decades by putting x86 chips in PCs, Intel has put x86 into mobile devices with the Atom processor. The x86 compatibility on mobile phones will boost adoption of the chips for consumers looking to run applications on multiple devices, Gelsinger said.

Despite Intel's hopes, the company will have to compete against Arm, a chip designer that has a dominant presence in the mobile chip space and is now looking to challenge Intel by putting its low-power chips in servers.

"In our first foray into wireless devices, we were doing it with Arm. We said, 'Why are we building somebody else's architecture?' We realized that we can take Intel architecture -- x86 compatible -- to those power levels and cost levels. That's what we've proven with Atom," Gelsinger said.

Arm may be exponentially larger in the mobile space, but the lack of a standard software and hardware ecosystem could pose a problem for the chip designer, Gelsinger said. "You have numerous different Arm architectures, multiple architectural licensees that are compatible across Arm, and you have numerous fragmented different operating systems that run on it. There is no... ecosystem."

Arm didn't immediately respond to a request for comment.

The cost of creating custom chips based on designs is also very expensive, which could create cost challenges for new chip manufacturers to enter the space, Gelsinger said. The move to manufacture chips in the 450-millimeter wafers will help Intel reduce manufacturing costs per chip and result in more efficient use of the resources, including water and energy, which could bring prices of the chips down.

Despite Intel's platform and scale advantages, it enters the mobile chip market where it has a minimal presence. It already suffered a major setback when Apple's CEO Steve Jobs last month said it would use technology from PA Semi, a company it acquired earlier this year, to develop system-on-chips for the iPhone.

Gelsinger said Apple's decision was disappointing, but he hopes the company would add Intel back to its mobile road map.

"People haven't been lining up outside ... asking us to deliver these products. We have to go earn this business. We have to do it with superior products."

Beyond Atom, Intel has new products on the horizon that reduce chip size and consume less power, Gelsinger said. The company is developing a mobile platform code-named Moorestown. The platform includes a system-on-chip code-named Lincroft, which is based on a 45-nanometer Silverthorne core, and puts a graphics, video, and memory controller on a single chip.

"Our strategic attempt ... is to take Intel architecture value proposition into the milliwatt range... something... that we've never done before," Gelsinger said. "We are committed to take it to 10 milliwatts."

AT&T Mobility put some asterisks on its iPhone 3G pricing Tuesday but also revealed an interesting option coming in the future: an iPhone without a contract.

In the news release disclosing terms and monthly rates for iPhone 3G service plans, the carrier hinted at the upcoming offer without saying anything about when it will become available. Freedom will come with a price -- $599 for an 8GB device and $699 for a 16GB -- but this will mark the first time consumers in the United States are able to buy an iPhone without being tied down to a two-year contract.

[ For the big picture on the iPhone 3G, see InfoWorld's special report ]

The phone probably would still be locked for use only on AT&T's network, said Jupiter Research analyst Michael Gartenberg. But buyers could choose a pay-as-you-go plan for voice service -- there is no prepaid data plan from AT&T -- or just use the device as a media player and calendar and access the Web via its Wi-Fi radio. Unlike the slimmer iPod Touch, the iPhone has a camera and a small speaker. The numerous third-party applications coming to the iPhone later this month presumably also could be used without a service plan.

However, the no-contract phone is likely to have a narrow appeal, he said.

"That's a pretty hefty premium you're going to pay over an iPod Touch," Gartenberg said.

The iPhone 3G is set to go on sale July 11. On Tuesday, AT&T revealed details of the four plans it will offer for the iPhone 3G. They range from $69.99 per month for 450 anytime minutes and 5,000 night and weekend minutes, to $129.99 per month for unlimited anytime minutes. All the plans include unlimited data but not an SMS (Short Message Service) package. Taxes are extra. There are more details at AT&T's iPhone page.

Also on Tuesday, AT&T said the iPhone 3G's vaunted $199 price would only be available to three kinds of customers:

-- people who bought the iPhone before July 11-- customers new to AT&T, or ones activating a totally new line-- existing AT&T customers who are eligible for an upgrade discount

This means current AT&T customers with handsets other than the iPhone will have to pay $399 for an 8GB iPhone 3G or $499 for the 16GB model unless they are due for a phone upgrade discount.

Any AT&T customer upgrading to the iPhone 3G will be charged an upgrade fee of $18 instead of the standard $36 activation fee that newcomers to AT&T will pay. Those who bought a 2G iPhone on or after May 27 will be able to swap it for a 3G model and pay only a restocking fee. However, anyone upgrading from a 2G iPhone to the new model will have to enter into a new two-year contract under a 3G iPhone plan.

Used 2G iPhones can be handed down to family or friends, but their new owners will have to take the handsets to an AT&T store for activation before using them as phones, according to AT&T.

Despite the debuts of alternatives such as the Samsung Instinct from Sprint Nextel, there's still no real competition, Gartenberg said. The iPhone's iPod features and direct connection to iTunes, plus its software overall, make it stand out.

"None of them are quite delivering on the same experience that Apple is, just yet," Gartenberg said.

Microsoft and Powerset confirmed Tuesday that Microsoft will purchase the search-engine startup. The news comes several days after a rumor about the deal circulated on the Web.

[ See related video of Eric Knorr's visit to startup Powerset and a demo of its search engine. ]

Neither company mentioned the price of the transaction on separate blog entries, where they made the announcement.

Microsoft said through its public relations firm that the companies are not disclosing the terms of the deal. Last week's rumor set the price at about $100 million.

In a blog entry attributed to Microsoft senior vice president Satya Nadella, the company said the Powerset team will join Microsoft's Search Relevance team and stay in San Francisco, where the startup is headquartered. Powerset has 63 employees that will remain in their current office, Microsoft said.

Powerset is pioneering semantic search, technology that Nadella said is valuable to Microsoft's direction for its search engine.

Semantic search attempts to extract meaning from search queries and Web pages rather than simply matching them up with relevant links based on keywords or previous or related searches. Search-engine leader Google still primarily uses keywords to deliver search results.

"We know today that roughly a third of searches don't get answered on the first search and first click," Nadella wrote. "Usually searchers find the information they want eventually, but that often requires multiple searches or clicks on multiple search results."

He cited two specific problems for the delay in finding information with traditional search methods: differences in phrasing or context between a user's search and the way information is expressed on Web pages, and lack of clarity in the descriptions for each Web page in the search result.

Powerset is currently testing a search engine that attempts to understand the meaning of Web pages, in part using technology licensed from Xerox's PARC subsidiary. That technology creates a semantic representation of Web pages by parsing each sentence and extracting its meaning.

In a blog entry attributed to Powerset's Mark Johnson, the company believes that Microsoft will help it deliver its technology to a wider audience much more quickly than the startup could do itself.

"Microsoft shares our goal to improve search through deeper analysis of queries and documents, and understands that our technology and expertise will play a key role in the evolution of search," he wrote. "With an existing search infrastructure, incredible capital resources, unlimited data, a leading search team, and clear mission to revolutionize the search landscape, Microsoft can rapidly accelerate our progress in building semantic search technology and bringing it to full Web scale."

Microsoft plans to integrate Powerset's technology with some of its own natural-language technology that has been in development in Microsoft Research, Nadella wrote.

The company will disclose more details on how it will use Powerset's technology in its Live Search engine at a later date, he added.

For years Microsoft has been looking for ways to bolster its search strategy, and it needed an alternative to purchasing Yahoo when that deal fell through.

Since search-based advertising is the largest slice in the online advertising pie, Microsoft must increase the profile of its Live Search engine in order to build this part of its business.

Live Search is seen as far inferior to Google's search engine and ranks behind Yahoo in terms of how often it's used.

You've got questions, we've got answers (no disrespect to RadioShack intended). Besides releasing rate plan details, AT&T has also posted answers to some of the lingering queries that new and existing AT&T customers might have about snagging themselves an iPhone 3G. Here are a few that we hope will answer questions that readers have frequently been asking us.

So the iPhone costs $199 or $299, right?Sure, Steve Jobs has touted the $199 price tag for the iPhone 3G, but as with anything where a non-Apple company is involved, the truth is not quite that straightforward. If you're a new customer to AT&T, you will pay $199 for the 8GB model or $299 for the 16GB model, as long as you also sign up for a 2 year contract.

If, however, you are an existing AT&T customer, it will depend on your upgrade eligibility. If you are eligible for an upgrade and your account is in good standing (check your My Account page AT&T's Web site to find out if you qualify), you can also take advantage of the $199/$299 pricing. Otherwise, you can purchase an "early upgrade" which will run you $399 for the 8GB or $499 for the 16GB model. Both of those cases will require you to extend your current contract for another two years, and you'll have to pay an $18 upgrade fee to boot.

Can I get an iPhone without signing up for a two-year contract?No. Well, not yet anyway. According to AT&T, a "no-commitment" version of the iPhone 3G (perfect for those of us with commitmentphobia) is "coming soon", and will run $599 for the 8GB model and $699 for the 16GB model. Yowch.

What about prepaid plans? Can I sign up for one with the iPhone 3G?'Fraid not. According to AT&T's cutely named iReady checklist (PDF link), prepaid plans are not available for iPhone 3G.

I want to buy iPhones for me, my dog Ralphie, and my Aunt Marge; can I do that?Nyet. AT&T says you may purchase only one iPhone per person in line. Your Aunt Marge and Ralphie will have to wait in line for their own.

If I buy a new iPhone 3G, how do I transfer data from my old iPhone?Fortunately, iTunes will take care of that. Make sure you sync your existing iPhone with iTunes before trying to sync your new phone so that all your data is current.

Will my new iPhone 3G be able to retrieve my existing voicemails?Apparently not. AT&T says, "Check and clear your voicemail. Any existing voicemail messages will be lost once your new phone is activated." So if you were hoping to retain that hilarious message your friend sent you from their bachelor party, you might want to find some other way of recording it.

What do I do with my old iPhone once I've got my shiny new iPhone 3G?Well, whatever you want, really. You can hand your old phone off to your friend or family member who can then activate it themselves via iTunes. AT&T provides full details for how to do so in this PDF. If you decide not to pass your old phone on, here are some suggestions for what to do with your old unit.

Alternatively, there are software programs out there that will probably let you turn it into a pretty functional iPod Touch.

Macworld is an InfoWorld affiliate.

Only 59.1 percent of people use up-to-date, fully patched Web browsers, putting the remainder at risk from growing threats from diligent hackers, according to a new study published by researchers in Switzerland.

The study, published Tuesday, is one of the most comprehensive analyses of what versions of Web browsers people are using on the Internet. The study was conducted by researchers at The Swiss Federal Institute of Technology, Google and IBM Internet Security Services.

Web browsers are often a weak link in the security chain, as software vulnerabilities can make it easy for hackers to gain control of a PC. When that happens, hackers can perform malicious acts such as stealing personal data or turning PCs into spam-spewing drones.

What the researchers found is that although software vendors provide patches for security problems, it can take days, weeks or months before people update their applications. In the meantime, those users are at risk.

But it's not entirely the fault of users, since Web browser vendors haven't exactly made patching easy, said Stefan Frei, a doctoral student at the institute, which is known as ETH Zurich, and one of the report's authors. The Web browser is still fairly young technology, and the industry has yet to settle on a dominant, well-tested design, he said.

The study looked at search and Web application server log data provided by Google to see what versions of the Firefox, Opera or Safari browsers people were using, Frei said.

Microsoft's Internet Explorer, however, only tells Web servers what major version a person is using, such as IE 6 or IE 7. The researchers relied on data from people who have installed a tool on their PC called the Personal Software Inspector, from Danish security company Secunia that can detect incremental versions of IE, Frei said.

Firefox users were the best at upgrading: 83.3 percent are using the latest version (the study just looked at Firefox 2.0). For Apple's Safari, 65.3 percent use the latest version; 56.1 percent for Opera, and 47.6 percent for Microsoft's Internet Explorer.

Mozilla's Firefox came out on top due to its auto-update feature, which tells a user a new patch is available and offers a one-click way to upgrade. Within three days, most Firefox users are up to date, the study said.

Frei recommends that all browser makers put in an auto-update feature since the process now is cumbersome and slow.

Now, Opera users are told there is a new version, but they have to go to Opera's Web site and go through the same installation process as if they had initially downloaded the browser for the first time, Frei said.

Safari uses an external updater that only polls for updates at certain intervals. Microsoft's updates are distributed on the second Tuesday of the month. Those gaps in time between when a vulnerability is publicly disclosed and a person patches is crucial, as they're an open window for an attack.

The problem with lax patching falls squarely on the shoulders of the application vendors -- users often simply can't visually tell if their browser needs to be upgraded, Frei said.

He advocates software vendors take a cue from the food industry and put an "expiration date" right on top of the browser to let people know the browser's state. For example, a warning could appear beside the address bar: "145 days expired, three patches missing"

"It's a non-technical suggestion," Frei said. "How can you expect people that they run the update if they don't even know? We think it's the same as having a speed limit on a highway."

Even search engine companies such as Google could display the same warning above search results, as the browser version is transmitted to its servers when someone performs a query, Frei said.

Alternatively, security companies could make application version scanning part of their consumer products, which they have done for some enterprise-level software, Frei said.

But the problem of out-of-date browsers pales in comparison to the quagmire of plug-ins, which add extra functionality to the browser, such as Adobe's Flash and Apple's QuickTime multimedia program.

On average, people have between six to 10 plug-ins, many of which come from different vendors with different patching regimes and schedules, Frei said.

"The browser is the bread, and even if the bread is fine, if the ham is rotten, you have a problem," Frei said.

Just one software vulnerability in a plug-in can put a person's PC in danger. Frei is proposing that an organization such as a national Computer Emergency Response Team create a service where browsers can verify if it has the latest version of a plug-in.

Besides Frei, the study was also conducted by Thomas Dübendorfer of Google, Gunter Ollmann of IBM Internet Security Systems, and Martin May from ETH. The study will be presented at the Defcon security conference next month in Las Vegas.

The new version of Kaspersky's security suite, Internet Security 2009, features a novel but simple defense against keylogging malware: a virtual keyboard.

Full details have yet to be confirmed, but it is understood that the program will let users bring up the keyboard from which to enter login details for Web sites such as online banks that might be vulnerable. The on-screen keyboard will cache the keystrokes, protecting them from recording programs that would pick up physical keystrokes coming via the keyboard driver.

It's not a new idea but Kaspersky is the first major security vendor to include such a feature in a standard Net security program.

The company has also announced a raft of other enhancements to Internet Security 2009, and Anti-Virus 2009, both due out this month.

For the first time, Internet Security will feature applications whitelisting, which will analyze programs against a database from security vendor Bit9; users will be told about apps that don't show up with a digital "fingerprint" in this database. There will also the ability to enforce restrictions on external devices such as USB drives, and a security analysis tool will tell users which third-party software needs patching, in a similar mold to Secunia's Software Inspector.

The company claims it has overhauled the Anti-Virus program to better detect and deal with malware, especially rootkits, found on the system at the point it is installed, as well as adding improved self-protection against malware that tries to subvert Kaspersky itself.

If all this sounds as if it might cause performance to deteriorate, the company has an answer to that too. The new iSwift checksumming feature -- something that was popular in anti-virus programs as long ago as the early 1990s -- will reduce scan loads by analyzing only files that have changed since that last scan was performed.

"Our 2009 technology provides [...] an unobtrusive security solution that will not slow down their gaming, email, instant messaging, downloading, home working or social networking and other activities. The Virtual Keyboard will further protect those using online banking, to ensure that their money and account details remain safe," said Kaspersky's David Emm.

Internet Security 2009 UK Edition, single user, costs £39.99 ($80) per annum (£27.99 renewal), with Kaspersky Anti-Virus 2009 UK Edition, single user at £29.99 per annum (£20.99 renewal), available for download from this month.

Techworld is an InfoWorld affiliate.

Ericsson will equip Toshiba's business laptops with integrated support for mobile broadband access using HSPA (High Speed Packet Access), it announced on Tuesday.

The plan is to release the first laptops in the second half of 2008 in Europe, the Middle East and Africa.

Ericsson's module offers data rates of up to 7.2Mbps in the downlink and up to 2Mbps in the uplink, using HSDPA (High Speed Downlink Packet Access) and HSUPA (High Speed Uplink Packet Access). The module also features support for GPS (Global Positioning System).

Using an integrated module, as opposed to an external modem, has several advantages.

"The single most important thing is that it becomes easier to use, and you also get better battery time," said Eva Sparr, marketing director at Ericsson's mobile broadband modules unit.

Another advantage is that you can't misplace or leave an integrated module at home. It's one less thing to remember, according to Sparr.

One disadvantage is that you can't upgrade the modem and take advantage of the fast-paced development of HSPA. But that doesn't matter much, according to Ericsson.

"We are convinced that the current bandwidth will be good enough during the three-year lifecycle of a laptop, said Sparr.

Built-in support for wireless broadband has really taken off -- there are currently 84 models that support HSPA in some way, according to the GSM Association's device database.

For Ericsson it's the third deal it has signed with a major laptop manufacturer this year. Besides Toshiba it signed deals with Dell in May and Lenovo in February.

"Since Ericsson entered this market in 2007 the interest has been enormous, helped by the current forward momentum of mobile broadband" said Sparr.

Microsoft has unveiled a new program that allows its larger customers to combine separate product licensing agreements under one master contract, which could help them to get bigger volume discounts.

The move, announced Tuesday, is another step in a series of changes intended to improve Microsoft's product licensing terms and make them easier for companies to navigate.

The new Select Plus program is an upgrade to Microsoft's existing Select volume-licensing program. Select Plus allows customers who have multiple purchase contracts -- at different departments in a large company, for example, or even in different countries -- to combine them all into one master contract, said Chris Blackley, a director with Microsoft's Worldwide Licensing and Pricing Group.

This will allow customers to "aggregate" all of the purchases they make and "drive a higher volume discount," because the combined amount purchased will often put them into a different licensing class, he said.

Duncan Jones, an analyst with Forrester, said he knows many companies that have not been able to take advantage of volume-license discounting from Microsoft because licenses have been dispersed across the companies' different business units.

Select Plus now gives them an opportunity to take advantage of this benefit, he said.

"Now all they have to do is sign up [to Select Plus]," he said. "The business units can still decide what they want to buy and when they want to buy it, and the enterprise will automatically get the volume discount. It's much simpler for that kind of company."

Microsoft puts customers into different licensing classes depending on how much software they purchase, and the discounts they get -- which are often negotiated with authorized Microsoft resellers -- range from about 10 percent to 25 percent depending on the licensing class the customer is in.

Select licensing members with 250 or more desktops can migrate to Select Plus when any one of their contracts with Microsoft comes up for renewal. Other contracts can then be added to the Select Plus contract even if they haven't expired yet, Blackley said. There are no fees associated with moving from Select to Select Plus.

With Select Plus, Microsoft is also changing the way that Select license agreements relate to Software Assurance (SA), Microsoft's oft-criticized software maintenance and upgrade program.

SA is a three-year license agreement. But if customers sign up for SA six months into the year of a Select contract, they still pay for the whole first year of SA, along with the two subsequent years. Microsoft does not pro-rate SA for any contract time lost under Select licensing, Blackley said.

Select Plus does not work that way. A customer will now get the entire three years of SA -- for the same price as a Select licensee would pay for an abbreviated agreement -- no matter when they sign up for SA, Blackley said.

It was criticism from customers that led to the changes Microsoft is making to SA with Select Plus, Blackley said. "Customers were very vocal on that and we're trying to fix it," he said.

Another aspect of Select licensing that is different in Select Plus is that Microsoft has eliminated the forecasting element of the license. In Select licenses, customers would have to forecast what they were going to spend with Microsoft over the next three years to determine their volume-discount level.

If they were to underforecast and end up making a larger purchase, they would have to sign a new contract to get the higher volume discount, Blackley said.

In Select Plus, the discount level is set based on the customer's actual purchasing over the course of the year, he said.

This also means that new customers who sign up to the program would get discounts on the back end at the end of the year, rather than upfront when they purchase. However, since many customers signing up for Select Plus are already Microsoft customers, their spending and thus discount level can be determined by their existing purchasing, Blackley said.

Microsoft has been tweaking its licensing programs for several years because customers have complained about how complicated it is to buy multiple products with different licensing structures. However, Microsoft risks making its licensing terms seem even more complex with all of the changes the company has made.

Forrester's Jones said that the research firm sees "a regular full house" in its training workshops for helping companies navigate the complexity of Microsoft licensing.

"I think there is a lot of demand from people like us to explain it all to them," he said.

Traditional software licensing in general faces pressure from changes in the industry, with some products being licensed on a subscription basis rather than through multi-year contracts.

Microsoft is adapting to these changes by offering some of its business software on a subscription basis, but it still has a legacy of traditional software licensing to contend with as it makes the transition.

This story was updated on July 1, 2008

It may look like Windows Vista. It shares the same code base as Vista. It even rolls in Vista's first Service Pack. But in terms of customer adoption plans, Windows Server 2008 is no Vista.

A new Computerworld survey shows that 63 percent of the 403 respondents plan to adopt Microsoft's new server operating system. (You can read more extensive survey results here.) This contrasts with the intention of some IT organizations to skip Vista entirely and move directly to Windows 7 on the desktop. According to an online survey of 372 IT professionals conducted by Sanford C. Bernstein in May, companies expect just 26 percent of their PCs to be running Vista by the beginning of 2011, down from an estimate of nearly 68 percent of computers based on a similar survey a year ago.

"I haven't seen any shadow of Vista being cast over Windows Server 2008," says John Enck, analyst at Gartner. Most industry watchers, in fact, agree that deployment is not a matter of if, but when and where.

IT executives say that for the most part, Windows Server 2008's many new features won't compel them to change their normal refresh schedules to adopt it right away. "It's just an evolutionary step from Server 2003," says Rick Redman, senior IT analyst for the city of Amarillo, Texas.

[ Read InfoWorld's tips on making the most of Windows Server 2008's easy-to-miss new options ]

Jim Thomas, director of IT operations at window manufacturer Pella Corp. in Pella, Iowa, says Microsoft's new virtualization hypervisor, Hyper-V, is interesting. But other than that, he says, there's "not a whole lot" that he finds compelling. And Hyper-V is too new and immature to warrant rushing ahead to convert his 425 Windows servers, he adds.

Overall, however, IT decision-makers give the operating system a qualified thumbs up and plan to move to it as part of the normal server refresh cycle, which typically ranges from three to five years. Some customers, for instance, phase in new servers by replacing one-third of their machines each year; others replace all of their servers at once.

"We're coming at it much more from a normal rollout of an operating system," says Bob Yale, IT principal at The Vanguard Group in Valley Forge, Pa. Vanguard has about 1,200 Windows servers, most of which are running Windows Server 2003.

Overall, 59 percent of Computerworld 's survey respondents who said they plan to adopt Windows Server 2008 (WS '08) expect to get started within the next 12 months. More than half -- 55 percent -- expect to complete the transition within two years. The highest level of interest came from respondents at midsize organizations with 100 to 1,000 employees; 69 percent of them said they expect to get started within the next 12 months.

Selective serviceIn most cases, the early adopters are deploying WS '08 selectively in a bid to leverage specific new features in the operating system. While more than half of respondents in our survey said they will follow the usual upgrade schedule, about one in four said they will accelerate adoption for some applications. One in three respondents said that their organizations have a business need for a new feature in WS '08.

Mike Moore, IT principal at Vanguard, says his company has implemented a few WS '08 machines where the new features filled a business need. For instance, Vanguard has servers in place that leverage WS '08's new Network Access Protection (NAP) features. "We'd like to extend that further with the more-granular policy servers that Windows Server 2008 provides," he says. But he doesn't expect to get serious about WS '08 rollouts until sometime in 2009.

Neither does the city of Amarillo's Redman, who says he'd like to see a base of documentation and best practices before moving forward. "The biggest problem is getting useful technical articles out of Microsoft that don't have a lot of marketing hype," he says.

But Ward Ralston, senior technical product manager for Windows Server 2008, argues that plenty of resources exist today. He points to the Microsoft Assessment and Planning (MAP) Solution Accelerator and to the Microsoft Web Deployment Tool for IIS as examples.

Redman expects to begin migrating to WS '08 within a year. For now, however, he'll stick with Server 2003 when the need for new servers arises. While it's not hard to install the new operating system, it's quite a bit of work to load the fixes and patches and deal with technical support, he says. "If this one is working, why break it? We have 1,500 other things to do," he notes.

Early adopter Pacific Coast Cos. in Cordova, Calif., upgraded three server-based applications to WS '08 while participating in Microsoft's beta program. The applications, which include an estimator, a design application and a quality-control application, are all hosted using Terminal Services and have been stable. Because they're critical, however, administrators perform a preventive reboot every month, just to be safe, says enterprise architect Matt Okuma. But he'd like to see the operating system season a bit before he migrates other applications. "Would I run an SAP portal on Server 2008 right now? Probably not," he says.

Like Vanguard, Pacific Coast plans to selectively deploy WS '08 as a replacement for third-party network access control products. "We don't want a fancy environment for network access protection. We just want to know when someone unauthorized has accessed our network," Okuma says.

His organization has also deployed Windows Server 2008's Terminal Services, with its ability to publish applications, as a replacement for his Citrix environment, which was hosted by a third party. The new setup saves on licensing and maintenance costs and performs better. "We've offloaded the cost and maintenance of Citrix. That's why we went to Server 2008," Okuma says. It was, he adds, a "no-brainer."

Broader deployments at Pacific Coast will likely start with Active Directory servers, but that's at least a year away. "We'll stick with Server 2003 in the interim," Okuma says.

Virtual possibilitiesHyper-V is probably the most talked about new feature in Server 2008. But with the hypervisor and management tools just emerging from beta, most organizations don't take Hyper-V seriously -- yet. "It's on our watch list, but not on the critical path to our virtualization strategy by any means," says Vanguard's Yale.

"Down the road, I think Microsoft will crush VMware, but they're far behind VMware at this point," says Okuma. He currently has 150 Windows servers, most of which are running virtualized Windows Server 2003 sessions on VMware products. Many of those virtual servers are "Tier 0" virtual machines, where server recovery would be time-consuming. "I would not move them to Hyper-V at this point," Okuma says.

"In 12 to 18 months, [Microsoft] will give VMware a run for their money," says Gartner's Enck. He thinks Microsoft will push Hyper-V into the enterprise through aggressive licensing practices. "It is very good at using the Microsoft license as a tool to shift the base," he says.

VMware also faces a competitive challenge from Microsoft for IT organizations that use more than one hypervisor. The new version of System Center Virtual Machine Manager, which offers some of the same tools found in VMware's VirtualCenter, will support not only Hyper-V but VMware ESX hypervisors as well when it's released later this year. And support for Xen is planned, according to Microsoft. VMware supports only its own hypervisor.

Right now, management tools are the No. 1 issue when it comes to virtualization, according to IDC. Microsoft's offering is not nearly as complete as VMware's, says Amarillo's Redman. But as it matures and the number of virtual machines under management continues to grow, System Center Virtual Machine Manager's flexibility will be increasingly attractive.

For now, however, most large companies are already committed to VMware. While 62 percent of large-company respondents in the Computerworld survey said they were using VMware for virtualization, nearly half (45 percent) of small companies and 29 percent of midsize companies said they weren't using virtualization at all yet. Gartner estimates that the installed base for virtualization as a percentage of all servers in use is still somewhere around 10 percent. That leaves plenty of room for Microsoft to move in.

"We think Microsoft will get big chunks of the market" and push out competitors, Enck says, leaving the market with two dominant players: VMware and Microsoft.

Scott Zimmerman, CIO at CenterPoint Properties in Oakbrook, Ill., is using VMware to host six of the real estate development and management company's 25 Windows servers. Zimmerman says he's very interested possibly using Hyper-V. "Is it a viable substitute? We'll want to find out," he says.

The city of Amarillo, with 100 to 150 Windows servers, is just starting to look at virtualization, Redman says. He's interested in Hyper-V but wants to see a broad community of support surrounding it before he'll consider deployment. "With VMware, a lot of people can help," he says.

Chad Mawson, IT manager at law firm Woods & Aitken in Lincoln, Neb. agrees. He says he's seen "bits and pieces" of information on Microsoft's virtualization technology but notes that "there doesn't seem to be any real community base."

Overcoming VMware's entrenched position and customer loyalty won't be easy. "We're probably going to stick with VMware unless there's a huge price differential," Mawson says, noting that his ESX virtual machines are "incredibly stable." VMware isn't cheap, but that doesn't keep him up at night. "We get a good value for our money," he says.

Better living through Active DirectoryActive Directory and group policy are another area where users say even incremental improvements are welcome. Overall, however, the improvements in Active Directory, such as the new read-only domain controller and improved logging for change events, are minimal, says Gartner's Enck. More important improvements, including better integration with Lightweight Directory Services or non-Windows Kerberos implementations, aren't there yet.

Microsoft's Ralston counters that WS '08 includes more than 1,800 group policy settings that used to require the creation of custom scripts. "We closed the loop on all of those group policy features that were missing," he says. Microsoft also rolled in tools from its Desktop Standard acquisition, now called Group Policy Preferences, to automate the creation of group policies.

Woods & Aitken deployed a single instance of WS '08 for an Active Directory domain controller in a remote office that needed a new server. Mawson says the system is working fine, but he acknowledges that the deployment was a gamble. "It's more of a test in active use," he says. The enhanced group-policy management features are a step up, and Mawson intends to take full advantage of those features. He'll begin moving to WS '08 immediately but will only migrate as servers come up for their regular replacement, he says.

SEI Investments Co. found the new Active Directory features sufficient to upgrade some servers. "The improvements in the Active Directory services [and] fine-grained password policies are really compelling," says Michael Lebiedzinski, director of infrastructure for the company s Global Wealth Platform. "In the past, different password policies were a driver to separate domains," he says. While the ability to fine-tune password policies drove the firm's adoption of WS '08, enabling domain consolidation was a secondary benefit, he says.

Others say they like the improvements but are in no rush to upgrade servers. "We've had talks about upgrading our Active Directory, but what do we actually gain from it? The risk is higher to go to 2008 than to just stay with 2003 at this point," Okuma says.

Stripping down to the coreServer 2008 offers 19 role-based installations that strip down the operating system to only the components needed to perform a given function, such as DNS. "We removed everything that wasn't needed for those roles. No .Net Framework, no Media Player, not even a GUI," says Microsoft's Ralston.

Redman thinks that the Server Core roles such as Active Directory and DNS server configurations will be particularly useful for remote sites. "A stripped-down operating system has less of a footprint for viruses, etc.," he says. Still, he's not going to put them in ahead of the normal refresh cycle.

Some of the Server Core roles fall in areas where Linux has been a popular alternative, but Gartner's Enck doesn't think WS '08 is a Linux-killer. Server Core is limited to a few specific roles, making it less flexible than Linux, he says. And while Server Core versions are easier to administer and are more secure than full-blown Windows Server installations because of the smaller footprint, there's no clear cost benefit to moving off of Linux. However, Server Core could blunt further advances by Linux into the enterprise for those role-based services it does support, he says.

Internet Information ServerInternet Information Server 7, part of WS '08, offers more security features. Like the rest of the operating system, IIS has been componentized. There are more than 40 different pieces that can be installed to build a Web server, says Ralston. IIS 7 includes many security improvements, he adds. For example, a remote procedure call can't write to the registry or file system anymore because the security token for the account it runs under no longer has those privileges baked in.

IIS 7 is the most interesting part of Server 2008 for Zimmerman at CenterPoint Properties. "All of our applications are Web-based, so we like to keep current," he says. He points to improvements in streaming-media capabilities and in how IIS interacts with Active Server Pages, as well as the ease with which WS '08 can propagate configuration updates to Web server farms, as compelling reasons to upgrade.

It's not, however, compelling enough to make an IIS migration a top priority. "We don't have the time and project plan to focus on Windows Server 2008 right now," Zimmerman says. For now, he will continue to deploy Windows Server 2003 as needed and gradually begin upgrading later this year, starting with noncritical servers, he says.

SP2: The new SP1While it's typical for organizations to wait for the first service pack before deploying a new operating system from Microsoft, in Computerworld 's survey, just over a third of respondents said they'd wait for the next service pack before deploying WS '08. Small companies were the most cautious.

One reason may be the perception that WS '08 has already had its first service pack, since Microsoft rolled up Vista's SP1 into the initial release of the product. Indeed, Microsoft has announced that the first true service pack for WS '08 will be labeled "SP2."

But while Vista and WS '08 do share a common code base, the server OS is far more modular and has many features that aren't part of Vista. At best, Vista SP1 was a partial service pack for WS '08. "SP2 is the old SP1," says Vanguard's Moore. "I'm not convinced that they've fixed all of the quality issues. We'll wait until SP2." Vanguard will begin a gradual rollout only when SP2 finally ships, he says.

Pacific Coast's Okuma is also cautious. "Our organization will definitely wait" for SP2, he says.

But that's not stopping Mawson at Woods & Aitken. SP1 "was already integrated into Server 2008, so that didn't play into the decision for us," he says, adding that he has seen no crashes so far with his test server.

Zimmerman currently has WS '08 running on a test machine. "We like it," he says but notes that he'll wait for the next service pack. "We kind of hang out until [SP2 ships], unless there's some overwhelming argument that it's stable," he adds.

"Sometime after SP2 comes out, we will start to look at rolling through a refresh," says Moore. He expects to start sometime next year. The rollout will require six months of planning and 12 to 18 months to complete.

Perhaps the biggest reason why SP2 doesn't matter is that the update is likely to arrive before many organizations can initiate major deployments. Redman says SP2 is important but not a concern on his planning horizon: "By the time we get around to [deploying Windows Server], there usually is [a service pack]." The real bottleneck, he says, is evaluation and planning time. "It could take us six months to a year to finish looking at the features, play with them and see what it will buy us," he says.

Computerworld is an InfoWorld affiliate.