Microsoft Corp. Tuesday confirmed that it will release in March a beta version of what it is calling a unified software update service for consumers and small and midsize businesses. Called Microsoft Update, the service will provide a single location for users to get security and performance patches for Windows XP, Windows 2000, Windows Server 2003, Office 2003 and Exchange Server 2003.
Microsoft Update is designed to be "a superset of Windows Update, which will continue to exist" as a security and performance patch server for system administrators for medium and large enterprises, said Gary Schare, Microsoft"s director of security product management in Redmond, Wash. Both Microsoft Update and Windows Update are designed to give users and administrators a single place where they can go to get security and performance patches for Microsoft products.