Microsoft's acquisition of Softricity
I have been going through the backlog of Microsoft announcements from WinHec. There has been ample coverage of the beta releases of the big three: Vista, Longhorn Server and 2007 Microsoft Office System - now where's the logic in that nomenclature structure change! but I wanted to comment on
the acquistion of Softricity (not least because I had been talking to a Microsoft architect evangelist at the end of last week and had suggested to him that Softricity would be a smart acquisition).
Then I came across
Dana Gardner's analysis over at Briefings Direct. Dana's thoughts are very much in line with my own so I won't repeat them here. However, one additional thought springs to mind, prompted by a briefing about Longhorn Server yesterday and more specifically the emphasis that Microsoft is placing on Terminal Services for 'Centralized Application Access'. The company will be introducing a couple of new features with Terminal Services in Longhorn Server. The first is Terminal Services Gateway, which provides for remote access without a VPN (just as RPC over HTTP allows Outlook to connect to an Exchange Server) but it's the second, Terminal Services Remote Programs, which is interesting in the light of the Softricity acquisition. Basically, it allows direct access to a remote application which is accessed on demand without the user being aware of Terminal Services - in much the same way that Softricity does. Seems to me there may have been some wasted R&D effort and that Microsoft is going to have to help customers understand which option makes sense when.
Whilst I am on the subject of application virtualisation I may as well raise another issue/question, although this one's not related directly to the acquisition. In fact, it's something I have raised with
David Greschler (a co-founder of Softricity) in the past. Desktop applications don't exist in isolation and there are typically dependencies with server components. The question is how to ensure that the desktop change management processes - in the case of Softricity these are through integration with System Center Configuration Manager (aka Systems Management Server) - are coordinated with those of the servers on which they depend. As application virtualisation becomes more mainstream, now that Microsoft has entered the fray, potential adopters should be seeking some answers.
