Microsoft is focused on making customers' growing network of distributed systems easier to manage, CEO Steve Ballmer assured the company's customers and partners in one of Microsoft's periodic "Executive E-mail" blasts, released on Wednesday.

Ballmer's missive highlighted Microsoft's Dynamic Systems Initiative (DSI), its autonomic computing plan.

Microsoft's amorphous DSI is focused on building management directly into the core of Microsoft's current and future products, rather than on layering management software or services on top of a company's core infrastructure. Microsoft considers Windows Server 2003, Systems Management Server 2003, Visual Studio 2005 and Microsoft Operations Manager 2005 all to fall under the DSI banner.

."I believe our industry has a responsibility, and an opportunity, to dramatically simplify the computing environment by seamlessly weaving together all of the devices, services and multiple layers of software into a coherent, efficiently managed technology framework," said Ballmer in his e-mail message.

Ballmer's e-mail comes days after Microsoft celebrated the one-year anniversary of Windows Server 2003.

Bob Muglia, Microsoft Senior vice president in charge of Windows Server, sent his own e-mail message to his troops to mark the one-year mark. Muglia's e-mail, dated April 27 -- a copy of which was viewed by Microsoft Watch – enforced the importance of helping "our customers to drive out complexity and achieve greater efficiency."

"Companies on average are spending as much as 80% of their time maintaining existing technologies – helpdesk, patching software, deploying new clients, or ensuring the infrastructure is securely deployed. They are asking us to be a committed partner and deliver solutions in a predictable and timely manner," Muglia told the Windows server team.

In his e-mail, Muglia itemized the challenges the Windows server team faces going forward. These include improving security; simplifying deployment, operations and troubleshooting, especially for medium-sized businesses; easing Unix-to-Windows migration; increasing customer satisfaction; and "winning against Linux-based products."

"On the UNIX migration front, while Linux products may be adequate for basic, stand-alone, un-integrated workloads, they do not meet the customer need for well integrated and manageable workloads and also do not have the mission-critical workload strengths that we have with Windows Server," Muglia told team members. "With that said, we must continue to prove to customers the value of integration and the savings that are achieved through integrated systems management and integrated identity management."