Microsoft has firmed up some of the details of its upcoming SMB operating system release. The IDG's Elizabeth Montalbano reported on the details in a story at InfoWorld last weeek. To some extent, there are no surprises in here -- it's all about bundling more services in a package that's easier to deploy. The interesting facet it the web services side: Microsoft's Small Business Strategy leans heavily toward hel Microsoft has firmed up some of the details of its upcoming SMB operating system release. The IDG’s Elizabeth Montalbano reported on the details in a story at InfoWorld last weeek. To some extent, there are no surprises in here — it’s all about bundling more services in a package that’s easier to deploy. The interesting facet it the web services side: Microsoft’s Small Business Strategy leans heavily toward helping SMBs move both internal and external communications to a service-oriented architecture — the sort of thing that makes perfect sense for the small business, but is typically the realm of the larger enterprise.Looking at the Microsoft news reminded me of a conversation I had at the InfoWorld Virtualization Executive Forum. One of the speakers told me that the issues faced by small businesses and large enterprises in virtualization are exactly the same; the only difference is the resources that can be deployed to deal with the issues. To a great extent that’s true with small businesses and enterprises in dealing with pretty much all IT issues. The real questions don’t revolve around the problems to be solved (they’re much the same across the board) but in how many resources the smaller business can deploy to deal with the problems.When I’ve covered security, I’ve long defined the SMB as a business in which security it handled by a networking generalist who has security as a part of the job portfolio. Enterprises have dedicated security staff. Most vendors agree with the logic of this definition, and it works for many other areas of computing. Vendors are now realizing that there is a huge market made of of companies that have a single IT person (whether in-house or under contract) to take care of all their IT needs. Building solutions that can reasonably be deployed by this overworked generalist is in the best interest of the vendor and the customer — and it’s a step I’m seeing more and more vendors take. Microsoft is no exception, and it will be interesting to finally put my hands on the product in the near future. I’ll have more for you then… Technology Industry