Microsoft said it has some “potential game-changers” coming that could dramatically affect its role in the businesses. TechRepublic’s Scott Lowe says he sees five that are most likely to have a major effect on IT. In fact, any one of them will give IT managers plenty to think about in 2012. 1. System Center Configuration Manager 2012: “With SCCM 2012, Microsoft is introducing major changes designed to enhance the end-user experience and streamline IT operations. Microsoft is making the user the focus rather than computers. With SCCM 2012, as users roam between different computers, their applications can follow them.” 2. System Center Operations Manager 2012 “SCOM 2012 offers the ability to discover and monitor network devices, including the various interfaces and ports on those devices. With SCOM 2012, you can go far beyond simple up/down monitoring in SCOM.” 3. Windows 8 client “If Windows 8 works the way that Microsoft seems to want it to work, the product could revolutionize computing by allowing the same operating system and applications to run seamlessly across a wide variety of devices, including PCs, laptops, tablets, phones, and even gaming consoles.” 4. Lync “Lync has the potential to seriously disrupt the telephony space, and it adds serious unified communications capabilities to organizations that deploy it. Lync enables users to share individual desktops and to collaborate with other users. In addition, it includes audio and video conferencing capabilities and much more.” 5. Hyper-V 3.0 “Microsoft says that Hyper-V 3.0 will catapult the company’s virtualization efforts and move it, in some ways, beyond what even VMware is offering. Hyper-V 3.0 will add the ability to perform multiple concurrent live migrations and introduces the new VHDX virtual disk format, a virtual fiber channel adapter and boot from SAN capabilities.” Source: Tech Republic