In other TechEd developments, Microsoft launched Internet Security & Acceleration Server 2006, which is an integrated edge security gateway to protect IT environments from Internet-based threats. The company also announced public availability of a System Center Operations Manager 2007 beta release, which leverages the System Definition Model to provide service-oriented management for business services such as Exchange, SharePoint, Active Directory and applications built on the SQL Server 2005 database. The product is the next version of what is now known as Microsoft Operations Manager 2005.

Also appearing onstage was Ray Ozzie, Microsoft chief technical officer and the creator of Lotus Notes. "People-Ready also means IT-ready. It means that well-accepted, user-friendly tools needn't be out of control or unmanageable," Ozzie said.