HP and Microsoft Corp. announced a three-year agreement to invest $250 million to significantly simplify technology environments for businesses of all sizes.

Microsoft acquires IT process automation experts Opalis Software.

Data Protection Manager 2010 delivers unified data protection for Windows servers and clients as a best-of-breed backup & recovery solution from Microsoft, for Windows environments.  DPM 2010 provides the best protection and most supportable restore scenarios from disk, tape and cloud- in a scalable, reliable, manageable and cost-effective way.

Microsoft System Center Capacity Planner (SCCP) is formally being discontinued.  The most recent version, SCCP 2007, is no longer available.  No new versions of this standalone capacity planning tool, as well as any new or updated application capacity planning models, will be developed.  For more details on this announcement, please visit http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/sccp/default.aspx.

Get ready to “Manage the Future” at the Microsoft Management Summit 2010 (MMS 2010) – the best place to learn about the latest IT Management products, technologies and solutions from Microsoft and partners. Visit www.mms-2010.com today for more details and registration information.

Do you want to have access to privileged material? Meet others with a passion for management and grow your knowledge and expertise in System Center solutions? Become a blogger in the Influencer community with a chance to win $100. Find out more.

Mark your calendar for the Microsoft Desktop Virtualization Hour. Watch and interact live with Microsoft, industry experts and IT leaders for a moderated televised discussion.

Learn about and download System Center Service Manager Beta 2. Service Manager, through the power of its integrated platform, reduces costs and improves IT responsiveness. With built-in processes and workflow for incident, problem resolution, change control and its configuration management database, Service Manager orchestrates activities and connects knowledge from System Center Operations Manager, System Center Configuration Manager, and Active Directory.

Join us at the Microsoft Virtualization Summit 2010 in your nearest city and learn how Microsoft can help you discover choices, preserve & extend your existing investments. Interact with Microsoft personnel, industry experts, IT leaders and get your questions answered.

See how Microsoft products help to bring cost savings, productivity, and innovation together.