Business Ready Security news at WPC

This week in New Orleans Microsoft is hosting its annual Worldwide Partner Conference. We made several announcements today at the conference about our identity and security solutions. This news is part of our Business Ready Security strategy to help both partners and customers 1) protect everywhere and access anywhere, 2) integrate and extend security across the enterprise, and 3) simplify the security experience and manage compliance

 

Official names and pricing for “Stirling”

Forefront codename “Stirling” - the next generation of the Forefront Security Suite for integrated, comprehensive protection across endpoints, servers and the edge – will be officially known as Forefront Protection Suite (FPS) .  

 

FPS will include the products in the current suite, plus the Forefront Protection Manager (formerly known as the “Stirling” management console) and the Forefront Threat Management Gateway Web Security Service.

 

FPS pricing will remain the same as the current Forefront Security Suite and all of the component solutions will continue to be licensed on a subscription basis. They will also be available independently, with Forefront Protection Manager included. (Note that the Forefront Threat Management Gateway license is sold separately on a per processor basis.)

 

At WPC we are also announcing the following new product solution names:

· Forefront Endpoint Protection 2010 - current version is Forefront Client Security

· Forefront Protection 2010 for Exchange Server - current version is Forefront Security for Exchange Server

· Forefront Protection 2010 for SharePoint - current version is Forefront Security for SharePoint

· Forefront Online Protection for Exchange - currently called Forefront Online Security for Exchange

· Forefront Threat Management Gateway Web Security Service - the next generation of ISA Server 2006.

 

The new FPS solutions are currently in beta and final versions will ship over the course of the latter half of 2009 and the first half of 2010.

 

Public beta 2 of Forefront Unified Access Gateway

Forefront Unified Access Gateway beta 2 is available for download at www.microsoft.com/forefront. UAG provides secure, virtually anywhere access to messaging, collaboration and other applications, increasing productivity and policy compliance. UAG also extends the benefits of Windows DirectAccess across the enterprise, enhancing scalability, deployment and management.

 

Official name for “Geneva”

The three components of Microsoft “Geneva” – the upcoming open platform providing simplified user access and single sign-on for cloud and on-premises applications – have the following names:

· Active Directory Federation Services – formerly known as “Geneva” Server

· Windows Identity Foundation – formerly known as “Geneva” Framework

· Windows Cardspace – same as current version

 

Partner opportunities

At WPC partners will learn about how the solutions above offer tremendous opportunity to better meet the identity and security needs of customers...and to build their own businesses. Since announcing a $75 million investment in our partner ecosystem at WPC last year, we have seen very strong partner development and growth.

 

For example, we have seen a 50% increase in participation in the Security Software Advisors (SSA) program, which offers fees to partners who influence deployment. The Security Solutions Competency, which enables partners to differentiate themselves as experts, is one of the fastest growing competencies in Microsoft’s history and in the last year grew 46% in participation. This year we anticipate quadrupling the number of identity and security partners we support with training, marketing and customer engagement.