System Center Guide

Having been a part of the Microsoft Management Summit (MMS) since its inception as the SMS Users Conference in 1999, I feel somewhat qualified to speak to it’s history and trends. This annual event has allowed Microsoft and the partner ISV community to showcase their wares to thousands of attendees. In fact, many partners admit that a significant portion of their annual revenues come from the weeks and months following MMS.

Now those of you that know me well, can attest that I’m not a betting man. In fact, in all the years that MMS has been hosted in Las Vegas I’ve gambled no more than a total of $100. However, if I were a betting man, I would wager that this year Microsoft will Release-to-Manufacturing (RTM) the highly anticipated System Center Service Manager product. This would fall in line with how they announced the System Center brand and the subsequent release of Operations Manager 2007.

Some of you will recall that Microsoft attempted to release this product into beta as “Service Desk” back in 2007. However, the community was so disappointed with the Microsoft’s efforts on the product that they decided to pull it back and start completely over from scratch. Now, nearly 3 years later, with the product re-written and re-named it is quickly approaching its anticipated release schedule (1st Half, 2010) and is being welcomed much more favorably than the previous attempt. That is partly due to the true ITIL model that it follows, its asset management capabilities and integration points between the other System Center solutions.

So, will Microsoft finally get this product out the door at MMS 2010? Time will tell, but if you’re going to wager on it, I’d go all in if I were you.