Like management, this often must be designed from the ground up and consequently incurs large development management cost. OSS projects will consistently have problems matching this feature area Solve Scenarios . ZAW, dial up networking, wizards, etc. Client Integration . For example, MSMQ, as a piece of middleware, requires closely synchronized client and server codebases.
Middleware control is critical .
Obviously, as servers and their protocols risk commoditization higher order functionality is necessary to preserve margins in the server OS business. By consolidating and managing the arduous task of keeping up with the latest fixes, Microsoft provides a key customer advantage over basic OSS processes. Long-Term Commitments . Via tools such as enterprise agreements, long term research, executive keynotes, etc.