Product Watch: Microsoft Scraps Forefont Protection Manager Product

Microsoft won't release its planned Forefront Protection Manager (FPM) security management product after all, the company blogged last night.

"Instead, multi-server management for Forefront Protection 2010 for Exchange Server (FPE) and Forefront Protection 2010 for SharePoint (FPSP) will be delivered through a streamlined solution for messaging and collaboration workloads, both on-premises and in the cloud. We will share additional details on this solution in the future," the blog post said.

A Microsoft spokesperson says the blog post is all the company will be saying about the move at this time.

"They appear to be folding enterprise security into systems and application management, which is likely where it has always belonged. Yet one more layer for security was likely creating problems because of the additional complexity," says Rob Enderle, principal analyst with the Enderle Group.

Enderle believes the move is more of a product alignment issue.

Microsoft said in its post that it's aligning security management with systems and application management. In the meantime, Microsoft said it will release in the second half of this year a Service Pack for Forefront Server Security Management Console and a Forefront Server Security Script Kit for configuring and reporting on multiple deployments within an enterprise of FPE and FPSP.

The company says its strategy entails incorporating risk management across protection, access, and identity, and simplifying security management "by building on application workloads and providing a consistent management experience across physical, virtual, and cloud environments."

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