Microsoft is aiming to close a gap with last week's introduction of its upcoming Forefront product code-named Stirling, which promises to provide a single management console to pull together and make sense of all the security data being generated about clients, servers, and networks.

Stirling will give IT and security managers one place to look when they want to deploy and manage their Forefront PC antivirus software, server content-filtering software, and network firewalls and VPNs. In its usual fashion, Microsoft is looking far out with the release: Stirling will be available in beta at the end of this year; general availability isn't scheduled until the first half of 2009.

Ultimately, Microsoft says Stirling will become an umbrella product through which it will sell Forefront products to protect client, server, and network devices. Microsoft plans to continue to sell standalone Forefront products as well.

Microsoft expects that Stirling will play an important role in its Network Access Protection policy enforcement platform built into Windows Vista and Windows Server 2008. Stirling will ensure that PCs, mobile devices, and other end points trying to connect into a company's network are clean before being inspected by the NAP policy-enforcement platform.

For all its strong points, though, Stirling won't manage security software from other vendors. Companies that have invested in Symantec Norton AntiVirus Enterprise Edition, McAfee Host Intrusion Prevention for servers, or other security products will have to look elsewhere for a comprehensive picture of their IT security operations. Microsoft has heard the argument that customers have invested in security software from a multitude of vendors, "but people continue to buy Forefront," says Margaret Dawson, Microsoft's group product manager for security and access product marketing. "Customers want one company to work with." And Microsoft thinks it knows which one that will be.