Microsoft has a dedicated website “Windows Server Feedback” for people to post their feedback about Windows 2000/2003 Servers and suggestions for upcoming releases.
Couple of months back I posted a suggestion for a feature in Windows Servers that will enable easy replication across Web servers – both web content and IIS/ASP.NET settings. Honestly I didn’t expect much and the feedback to be lying in some Microsoft Mailbox/Database Server dormant; it is going to be one among thousands of feedbacks. Yesterday I was surprised to receive an email from Windows Server Feedback Response Team acknowledging that the feedback was “interesting” and it is being sent to the Product Team. WOW!, I just hope the feedback will make it in the next release(s).
Open Source proponents, may say the above surprise is unnecessary if I am using an “Open Source” OS like Linux, where I can develop this feature myself and need not wait till the software giant does it. But my whole point is, I don’t want to re-invent the wheel, waste my time/resources in developing this feature. I want to simply buy it off-the-shelf; and focus on my core-business.