Jupiter - It's a Big Planet

Jupiter is a big planet.  One that Microsoft is going to map out in two phases now, instead of one.  Mary Jo's Microsoft Watch is the first that I saw (publicly) to report that Microsoft is changing its Jupiter direction.  

The Jupiter direction is one where MSFTs E-Business server applications (BizTalk Server, Content Management Server, Commerce Server, Host Integration Server, etc.) share a set of common services, including workflow, profile management, catalog management, personalization, etc.  For the past two years or so, the plan has been to take the E-Biz apps and build them around a common set of services, so that these services don't need to be duplicated within each product.  There was a lot of comment from customers that this was the right direction to go.

I think that it is becoming clear over the past 12 months consolidation of the Person-facing applications (Content Management Server and SharePoint Server) and the Back-End-facing applications (BizTalk Server, Commerce Server, Host Integration Server) hasn't been happening from a customer perspective.  Customers are still building projects around these concepts separately, and so it makes sense to keep the products separated for the time being.  The efforts to have common central services and to reduce overlapping development will still continue, but the product groups won't concern themselves with shipping the products together on the same DVD as was the original plan.

It's a good thing.

If you are a MSFT customer in the Northwest that has questions about this change in direction, please don't hesitate to contact me.