Following slow adoption of Active Directory after its release as part of Windows 2000 three years ago, Microsoft Corp. has been actively urging IT managers to deploy its directory services platform through aggressive pricing, detailed deployment road maps and increased support. . . .
Following slow adoption of Active Directory after its release as part of Windows 2000 three years ago, Microsoft Corp. has been actively urging IT managers to deploy its directory services platform through aggressive pricing, detailed deployment road maps and increased support. And with Microsoft releasing a new capability in AD that will enable organizations to run AD as a non-operating system service (meaning it does not require deployment on a domain controller) immediately following the release of its .Net Server 2003, enterprises that were on the fence about deployments may finally find a reason to make the leap.

Although only 36.4 percent of polled corporations deploying AD have enabled all their servers to use and participate in the AD environment, an additional 41 percent are expected to do so within 12 months, according to International Data Corp., of Framingham, Mass. (see chart).

However, according to a separate IDC poll, only 8 percent of IT managers said they were deploying AD because of its role in Microsoft's .Net strategy (see chart). These enterprise users were more interested in AD's ability to lower client management expenses.

The link for this article located at eWeek is no longer available.