BOSTON – With WinFS, its next-generation file store technology that it has been working on since 2002, Microsoft admittedly bit off a tough challenge: To provide a single, integrated store for Windows, Office and SQL Server data.

Now, the team's challenges are becoming even more complex, given that WinFS is going to need to manage data from Windows Live services, such as Windows Live Search, Windows Live Mail, Windows Live Messaging and other similar sources, too.

Microsoft officials provided attendees of the TechEd show here with an update on WinFS on June 12.

WinFS is the relational file store that will sit on top of Microsoft's existing NTFS file system. The goal of WinFS is to make data storage and retrieval more seamless across a variety of data sources, while making the current "file" model of data storage and retrieval obsolete.

Quentin Clark, product unit manager with Microsoft's SQL/WinFS unit, told attendees not to expect to see a second, publicly available beta of WinFS until some time later this year. (On the Microsoft WinFS Team Blog, company officials said to expect Microsoft to show off WinFS Beta 2 at this week's conference.)

Microsoft released a first beta of WinFS in September 2005 and refreshed that beta in December 2005.

Clark also told session attendees that Microsoft would continue to be ambiguous about its planned ship vehicles for WinFS, sharing more details only as Microsoft went public with its future Windows release plans.

Clark did, however, delve into Microsoft's evolving vision for WinFS – the technology that until 2004 was expected to be the killer feature for Vista and Longhorn Server. In August of that year, Microsoft ended up cutting WinFS out of both operating-system releases in order to be able to ship them in more of a timely fashion.

Clark admitted that Microsoft had failed in a couple of previous attempts to marry file system and storage technologies due to the level of technical complexity. But he told session attendees that Microsoft already had conquered several hurdles, including backward compatibility with Win32 applications and data-modeling challenges.

"In the post-Internet world, everything is about data," Clark said. "All data types are at all end points of the ecosystem," but "data is locked away in lots of diff application silos."

"WinFS is a piece of a bigger puzzle," Clark said. "We're bringing a new information model and store into Windows," he said. But Win FS also will "fit into our strategy for ADO.Net, SQL Server, and offerings we'll be making in (Windows) Live," he added.

"We're building a broader data ecosystem," Clark added. "Everywhere data might be, we're building together story, or puzzle, to provide a very rich experience around data."

When Microsoft originally conceived of WinFS, Windows Live wasn't part of Microsoft's strategy. But now that Microsoft is building an integrated set of contact, calendaring, location and other common data that will be shared by Windows Live, Office Live and other forthcoming Live services, WinFS is going to have to manage that growing pool of data, as well.

Microsoft is anticipating that Live services will become increasingly important to IT shops, not just consumers.

Microsoft Chief Technology Officer Ray Ozzie told TechEd attendees to watch for management of devices and applications to become "management as a service" style offerings, in their own right.

"We're entering an era where online services will yield tremendous opportunity for IT in the realm of management as a service; that is, Internet-based management services that can reach out and touch a wide variety of software and devices," Ozzie told keynote attendees on June 11. "I believe management as a service, federated with existing enterprise management systems, hold great promise in this realm."

Ozzie is Microsoft's primary Live services advocate and point person.

During the Monday morning WinFS session, Microsoft officials demonstrated an Explorer-like interface for WinFS, known as SpyStore. Officials declined to offer a timetable for if and when Microsoft will include a WinFS data-viewing capability as an integrated part of future Windows interfaces.