SMS2003 SP3 Webcast - Wally Mead

Good webcast, seemed to be focused on people with no SP3 exposure to date.

The webcast, I took away the following:

• The SMS2003 ICP packs for SP3 will be released at the end of this month
• SMS2003 SP3 now supports SQL2005 (RTM, sp1, sp2)
• Asset Intelligence is essentially a feature pack
• Current OSDFPU is supported on SMS2003 SP3
• ITMU V3 supported on SMS2003 SP3
• DMFPU supported by SMS2003 SP3 after KB934206 has been applied
• You can upgrade from SMS2003 SP1 to SMS2003 SP3 without installing SMS2003 SP2
• DRW might detect the ipv6 address for a vista client and warn
• Asset Intelligence is a closed system until SCCM is released. There are no editting tools to manipulate the Knowledge Base.
• Remote Control tool cannot be used on Vista clients, Remote Assistance Et Al to be used instead. Fair enough, Remote.EXE was showing it's age ... handy but not essential when we have RDP

Things I didn't hear Wally say:

• That he is going to take the WMUG team out for a few beers on his next UK visit!
  

Lots of info on the upgrade process, how to test the DB consistency, preparing for the upgrade, implementing said upgrade and then a brief run through the Asset Intelligence reports. Personally I didn't take much away from the webcast that I hadn't already skimmed from the www. The real jewel in the SP3 crown is Asset Intelligence, and I was expecting to hear a lot more about it ... such as how to edit the Knowledge Base and add in your own entries, but no tools exist for this until SCCM. There was even a hint at the Microsoft System Center feature Roadmap when System Center Service Manager was mentioned as managing License information.

Essentially the read-between-the-lines bottom line is that the development cycle for SMS2003 is winding down dramatically. Microsoft won't be showing the product much love, other than patching it and perhaps retro-fitting appropriate features from SCCM in to SMS2003. I think one of the silliest things Microsoft did with SMS2003 was split it's code-base in to SMS2003 and SMS2003 R2. If Asset Intelligence is a stand-alone module (Feature Pack), why didn't they just release all the components that make up R2 as a Feature Pack rather than creating two seperate products! Just smacks of a development team that is too small to manage it's overal responsibilities, and as a result is stretched too thin over a product that Microsoft should be SHOWING A LOT MORE LOVE TOO!

Double your Dev team, don't take shortcuts on the roadmap and keep your documentation in-line with you're releases!