Since I’ve been working the Forefront Client booth this year at TechEd, I’ve had a lot of questions about the value proposition for the next release, codename Stirling. I’ll summarize my response in one word: manageability.

Why do I say that? Well, I don’t deny that there’s continuous innovation happening on the client component – the anti-malware engine. That applies to all of the major providers – Symantec, CA, etc. But the client engine is not where the Enterprise-targeted product differentiation is happening right now.

In choosing an anti-malware (anti-virus, anti-spyware, etc) suite, an organization must first ask itself – what are our requirements, what are the applications we need to support, what are the policies that we need to have exposed, and what are the tools that we’re using today? Once you’ve got answers to those questions, evaluate competing solutions to determine what’s best for you. Forefront may or may not be it.

But what Forefront has going for it, specifically in the next release, is a consistent management experience. Consistent in three ways. First: client, server, and edge security products are all managed from a single console. Second: that console is based on the standard Microsoft user-experience/GUI guidelines that your admins already understand – and that lowers TCO, don’t forget! Third: management is AD/group-policy based. Again, you leverage your existing knowledge and infrastructure.

For the official spiel about the product, see here – http://www.microsoft.com/forefront/stirling/en/us/default.aspx.

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