Resellers hail Microsoft BizDesk facelift

Resellers who have complained about Microsoft Commerce Server's Business Desk may get some relief before the next major product release.

Microsoft is working on 'an interim' update to Business Desk, the tool set that enables a site developer or manager to develop, deploy and manage web commerce applications, a

Microsoft spokesman told CRN in the US.

He said the fix should be out by the first half of 2004 but would not comment on packaging. The important thing was that the channel would not have to wait for the expected next full version of Commerce Server, the so-called Discovery suite not expected now until 2005, he said.

'It is true that partners and customers have had issues with Business Desk,' he conceded. The focus of the interim fix, he said, will be on improving the user experience. A new Commerce Server 2002 Service Pack was one possible delivery option for these improvements, he said.

Resellers have bemoaned the non-intuitive nature of Business Desk, which is the vehicle for setting up and managing files, promotions, catalogs on commerce sites. 'It is how you interact, configure and operate all the Commerce Server features,' said one US VAR.

'Everyone universally agrees that the Bizdesk UI is bad,' said one US solution provider who otherwise lauded Commerce Server 2002. He and others said an interim fix would be welcome news.

When Microsoft announced the slip to Discovery's schedule last June, channel players suspected it was due to Microsoft aligning the new server suite around timing on Longhorn, the next version of Windows, and Office 12, the Longhorn version of Office.

'Jupiter phase two, or Discovery, was to be [available] in early form by late 2004 but then seemed to be re-positioned around Office 12,' said US source close to Microsoft.

'A lot of the things users have hated most was Business Desk functionality. It was so unintuitive and arcane and very hard for normal businesspeople to use. Indications were that all that was being subsumed by the programmable Office [12] components,' he said.

Microsoft is wavering on Longhorn timing. In his recent Comdex conference keynote in the US, Bill Gates would not utter a potential due date.

At the Professional Developers Conference a few weeks ago, where early code was distributed, Microsoft group vice-president Jim Allchin promised beta one of the Longhorn client for the second half of 2004. He did not put a date on the server component.

Just a few weeks before, senior vice-president Paul Flessner re-affirmed that the client would ship in 2005 with a server version expected in 2006, although that could be delayed by up to 18 months.

The Microsoft spokesman said it was too early to tell if there would be linkages between Longhorn and the next phase of Jupiter.

One e-commerce channel player said that, now Microsoft had released service packs that let Commerce Server 2002 and Content Management Server 2002 work better atop Windows Server 2003, he would have 'a good two solid years' to work off the existing code base.