MS Software Lets Users Host .Net My Services

NEW ORLEANS–Microsoft Corp. on Thursday confirmed it is working on new server software that will allow enterprise customers to host and run its core .Net My Services themselves, even behind the firewall.

Adam Sohn, a product manager for .Net platform strategy, told eWEEK in an interview that Microsoft has shifted its priorities away from hosting these as mass consumer services itself and is now concentrating on delivering the infrastructure that will allow its customers to deliver the first group of .Net My Services.

The infrastructure will be software, perhaps another .Net server, that will be sold to customers to allow them to host the 14 core foundational XML-based consumer Web services, which include the .Net Alerts notification service, .Net Inbox and .Net Wallet. Sohn declined to say when the software will be available for general release, just that it likely wont be before late next year.

“Customers want multiple operators from the start, they want federation, and they want to be able to install and run the product within the enterprise. They also want us to make it easier for them to write Web services, so that is now our focus,” he said.

This is a significant shift from Microsofts original policy around .Net My Services, where the company intended to host the 14 Web services itself, a strategy that was problematic from the start.

While acknowledging the shift in focus, Paul Flessner, senior vice president of Microsofts .Net enterprise server group, told eWEEK that the Redmond, Wash., company is simply responding to customer feedback.

“They told us that they wanted federated services and that we needed to prioritize more in terms of the services. They told us that they did not want all their data stored in one service and that they wanted to be able to replicate and [to have] ways to share this data,” he said.

Sohn said that, for its part, “Microsoft will still host these services internally, but now to power MSN experiences and other Microsoft customer experiences. I expect the next milestone to be a refresh on the .Net My Services Tool Kit released late last year, followed by some early pilot work over the next year or so.”

But Sohn did not rule out a subscription model. “While we are now focusing on selling a product to be deployed within a customers data center, the MSN customer relationship and deployment of these services may well have a subscription element. There is still a range of interesting stuff for us at the consumer end,” he said.