ISA Server 2004 availability also gains attention at partner conference Failing to deliver on promises to further simplify patching and software management, Microsoft last week delayed two key patching products and also said a new software management offering will not be available until the first half of 2005.At its Worldwide Partner Conference in Toronto, Microsoft said its WUS (Windows Update Services) patch management tool has slipped again. The tool, originally called SUS (System Update Services) 2.0, was supposed to ship earlier this year, but was pushed to the second half of 2004 in March.In its tow, WUS is delaying Microsoft Update, the successor to the Windows Update site that will offer patches for all Microsoft products instead of only Windows. Microsoft Update was also originally due in the first half of 2004. WUS is free and allows users to download and deploy patches for a host of Microsoft products. A technical preview was released early this year. The WUS predecessor, SUS 1.0, only handles patches for Windows clients and is currently used by 150,000 Windows servers to receive updates.Along with the one-year delay for WUS and Microsoft Update, Microsoft last week also said System Center 2005 won’t be out until the first half of 2005. System Center, which was scheduled to ship this year, bundles Microsoft Operations Manager (MOM) 2005 and SMS (Systems Management Server) 2003.Microsoft said WUS was delayed because the development team first had to finish a new update agent for the Windows client. The new agent will be part of Service Pack 2 for Windows XP, which Microsoft last week said it plans to ship in August, months after its original due date. But Microsoft’s news last week was not all about product delays. The company announced general availability of its ISA (Internet Security and Acceleration) Server 2004 Standard Edition. The firewall, VPN, and Web cache product costs $1,499 per processor.Microsoft also shared more details about NAP (Network Access Protection) technology in a Windows Server 2003 update called R2 that is due in the second half of 2005. NAP allows users to perform a “health check” on PCs connecting to their network and block clients that don’t meet set rules, for example for patches and virus signatures.Dealing with security, Microsoft also said it will offer a cleaner tool for the Download.Ject exploit that recently plagued Internet Explorer. Technology Industry