Microsoft plans July release for security and management tools

Giant prepares Forefront Client Security and System Centre Essentials 2007

Microsoft will make its Forefront Client Security and System Centre Essentials 2007 programs commercially available in July.

Forefront Client Security is intended to block viruses and malware from attacking laptops and desktops. The Essentials package is a set of management tools for companies with 50 to 500 staff.

Eric Berg, Microsoft director of product management for System centre, said that rather than being a cut-down version of previous management console Microsoft Operations Manager 2005, represents new code aimed at companies that typically have “one or two IT generalists”.

Microsoft said its latest generation of tools will also be more tightly integrated to help firms more easily provision, manage and monitor security procedures.

The releases are dwarfed by a broader plan to make Microsoft’s management tools more appealing across enterprises, including those with heterogeneous deployments. Microsoft contends that the advent of web services and configuration management databases will allow it to compete against traditional systems management frameworks from the likes of IBM, HP, BMC and CA.