Everybody has their own theory about the importance of the product we used to call Windows .Net Server, released last week as Windows Server 2003. Some may welcome the platform's support for XML, but there are other points of note.

A check with the usual suspects - consultants and contractors, mostly - suggests the product will impress most people because it includes version 6 of Internet Information Services (IIS).

Windows devotees may praise the increased security; but what really matters isn't what the users think, because the users aren't in charge any more.

The days when Microsoft sold "behind the backs" of the IT establishment to individual users are long forgotten.

So what does really matter? Probably, "trusted computing". Ah, yes, you say: increased security. Well, not entirely. With Microsoft, the phrase "trusted computing" means "Can we trust this computer to provide us with more revenue tomorrow than it does today?" - as Linux promoter Eddie Bleasdale says.

He has a point. Microsoft's hopes of increased revenue can't depend on increasing market share - not at the desktop level, certainly. It's now offering a server solution indistinguishable in scope and ambition from those of Sun and IBM, but it still lacks their experience and expertise - so some growth can be expected there. But at Microsoft's traditional price levels, this won't provide the revenue growth it needs.

All Microsoft can really do is lock down the system so licences are more secure, and arrange things so that corporates have to pay more per licence, and for more licences than they currently do.

Yes, that does require good security, but not security as we know it, Jim.

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