Microsoft sees further growth in RP info tech, todays news..

CEBU CITY, Philippines - Optimism in the Philippine information technology (IT) industry has led Microsoft Corp. to introduce its new server versions for enterprise customers and developers.
Microsoft’s new generation infrastructure and application platform products include the Windows Server 2008, Microsoft Visual Studio 2008 and Microsoft SQL Server 2008, which were launched Wednesday in Pasay City.
“The Philippines is a very important market for Microsoft. We see an exponential growth in the next five to 10 years. There’s a lot of spending here done by the business sector," said Bill Hilf, Microsoft Corp. general manager, platform strategy.
The new Microsoft servers will have several editions, including enterprise and data center iterations, depending on the number of platforms the clients wants to run.
All new products aim to provide security, Web, virtualization, developer productivity, and better business intelligence, Hilf said.
Hilf also presented Microsoft’s latest virtualization technology, dubbed the Hyper-V, which allows end-users to run multiple operating systems—like Windows—on a single server, thus maximizing hardware resources.
He said Hyper-V will be available in beta version bundled free with Windows Server 2008.
“Virtualization is an emerging technology in the global IT industry," Hilf said. Citing
Microsoft data, he added that less than five percent of servers worldwide are virtualized.
In an interview with reporters, Nicky Eala, Microsoft Philippines business group lead for server and tools, said 80 per cent of Microsoft users in the country are aware of virtualization but only half of those have tested it in their hardware.
As end-users begin to run advanced tools like business intelligence on their data warehouses, maximizing computing capacity out of existing resources eventually becomes an issue, Hilf said.
This is why, he added, the latest Microsoft server versions widen the options for end-users to grow their businesses.
Hilf also lauded the efforts of Microsoft’s partners like Hewlett Packard, Intel, Dell and Sun Microsystems, which have collaborated with the company in providing businesses with highly available IT solutions.
Highlighting the opportunity for industry partners, Microsoft said that according to a 2007 IDC study, for every unit of currency Microsoft earns from the sale of Windows Vista and Windows Server 2008 this year, software and hardware vendors earn about 81 currency units.
“By year-end, this ecosystem is predicted to sell more than $120 billion in products and services revolving around Windows Vista and Windows Server 2008," Microsoft said in a statement.

source: Sun.Star Cebu/ gmanew.tv