The company has previously focused its own systems management technologies on the Windows platform but is taking a new approach to systems management, according to CEO, Steve Ballmer.

We grew up focused on Windows, managing Windows, taking care of Windows, today I want to mark essentially as a step forward where you see that our dedication now is in providing you the kind of tools you need to manage heterogeneity in your data centers, Ballmer during told the Microsoft Management Summit audience in Las Vegas.

The company demonstrated management of Sun Microsystems Inc hardware and software using Microsoft management technologies during Ballmer’s speech, something that would have been unthinkable until very recently. We’ve worked closely with Sun, yes Sun, the people we never used to work closely with, said Ballmer.

Cooperation with Sun follows the collaboration and legal agreement struck between the two companies in April 2004. Ballmer added that he and Sun chief executive Scott McNealy would provide an update on their progress via a state of the union address in the next few weeks.

The demonstration of Microsoft management technologies monitoring Sun hardware and software indicates a new direction for Microsoft’s management products, which have previously been focused on its own technology and relied on partners such as NetIQ to provide connectors to non-Windows systems.

The change of approach has been enabled by the company’s work with Sun, AMD, Intel, Dell and BMC Software, among others, on the WS-Management web services specification for management, which has enabled it to be more interoperable at a management level, according to Ballmer.

From within System Center you can see and manage events and take action on events that come from Unix systems, from switches, from a wide variety of non-Windows equipment, said Ballmer.

It’s a much broader vision, it’s a much more heterogeneous management vision, and it’s a much more enterprise oriented management vision than we have really pursued before, but because of XML web services and interoperability, we’re after it now, he added.