Transparency: What guides Microsoft to improve server products and reduce your TCO?
Here’s another TLA for you all to learn: CEC. Microsoft’s Common Engineering Criteria.
The Microsoft Common Engineering Criteria is a set of engineering requirements and guidelines that govern all of Microsoft’s server products. The idea here is that we build products that work well together, and work to help you reduce your TCO (another TLA I’m sure you’re familiar with). So by creating a list of criteria for our products that define our “engineering and quality standards”, you and your companies benefit.
“How so?”
Okay… here’s an easy example. Have you noticed that PowerShell is now used as the foundation for configuration and management for all new server products coming from Microsoft?
“Yeah. I like that.”
There you go. If we had different scripting methods or sets of tools and utilities for every product, you’d have to learn or re-learn all of them, or have a bigger learning curve, or have more people trained in each different product. But having a common platform for management and configuration is going to reduce your TCO dramatically. PowerShell is one of the items required for server products in the CEC, and a good example of how we define and enforce requirements for products – to your benefit.
The three main areas and goals of the CEC are:
- Customers: Increase customer satisfaction and reduce total cost of ownership
- Products: Enable the “better together” experience for Microsoft server products
- Technology: Establish common technologies for Microsoft server products
Publishing the CEC for the world to see means that you have another way to “get into Microsoft’s head”. It will help you understand the product and technology areas that Microsoft feels are important to manage and improve from a product development perspective. And in a way, it’s also like a fortune teller’s crystal ball.
“Huh?”
Sure. Now you can know that in the future, these are the things that the Microsoft server product teams are forced to implement when building the next new server products or the next versions of products.
Go to the CEC Program Page to learn more about the program. Drill down into your favorite product or technical area and see specifics about what has guided us to make it better for you.
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What do you think Microsoft should include in their CEC?