Confusing Microsoft Servers story

This post is for all of you, b0rgs and marketing addicts working at Microsoft. And for you Scoble!

I'm constantly reviewing new opportunities, new technologies and new components that could make my life easier and my customers happier (by customer, I mean anyone using or making money out of my code, which includes both my company and my private projects).

And there, I am sooooo confused. You're not helping me mister Microsoft. I know of the following:

  • Sharepoint, be it the Windows Integrated Sharepoint Basic Services With A Very Long Name or the Sharepoint Collaborative Extensions With an Even Longer Name.
  • Biztalk, with orchestration. cool. Can be used by SharePoint if you have specific requirements in workflow management on documents.
  • But for documents, you have Microsoft Content Management Server.
  • And now we have Smart Documents, which conflicts with Infopath. I still can't see the difference (except less code involved in infopath).
  • And What about the Information Bridge Framework? How does the meta data server interact with Biztalk and Sharepoint?
  • And what about Host Integration Server? And what's the difference with Biztalk in talking with mainframes?
  • And Speech server? What's the integration story?

See, I’m sure this whole lot of servers could solve a lot of my problems. But where are the evangelist? Where is the chart with integrating all that? Where's the biztalk integration in Duwamish Online? Should I know anything about Commerce Server?

I resort to do things on my own where I'm sure there's already a solution. But so many servers for so many disconnected market means I'm lost. I may be stupid (and there's a very high probability that I am, or I wouldn't spend that much time trying to understand), but if I don't get it, others don't either. In any case, the marketing is at fault. And for once, as an architect / developer / technologist / stupid blogger, I strongly suggest the following: You suck!

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