Items of interest at the WinHEC conference, among other things, include:
Web Services for Management eXtension (WMX), which Microsoft defines as "a framework for end-to-end server management" that is based on SOAP. Microsoft is touting WMX as "a successor to SNMP, CIM-XML and other legacy protocols."
I do not know Microsoft's policy with regard to making presentations public, or restrictions on communicating information released at the conference, but it looks like something we should be aware of. Since CIM has advanced largely under Microsoft's prodding, a change in Microsoft direction to something perhaps more along the lines of what we are doing might suggest a reconsideration of our alignment objectives.
Bill Wagner