In a speech at the Microsoft Management Summit in San Diego, Kirill Tatarinov, corporate vice president for the company's Windows and enterprise management division, also reconfirmed Microsoft's near-term roadmap for its growing family of System Center products, which help corporations manage internal IT.

Buying AssetMetrix Corp., an Ottawa, Canada company that offers Web-based asset management services to corporations, will boost the ease-of-use of Microsoft's Systems Management Server (SMS), Tatarinov said.

No purchase price was disclosed. AssetMetrix's user interface and its database of 300,000 known software applications will be integrated into SMS within nine months, Tatarinov said.

First released in 1994, SMS helps companies configure and set up Windows PCs. SMS 2003 R2 will be released by the end of June. Tatarinov admitted that that would be a 'minor release' mostly aimed at fulfilling Microsoft's obligations to its customers on Software Assurance contracts.

SMS, along with Microsoft Operations Manager (MOM) -- which helps firms track internal events -- will be renamed in future versions to Systems Center Configuration Manager 2007 and Systems Center Operations Manager 2007, respectively.