LOS ANGELES—Some of the changes in the upcoming release of Windows Server 2008 are a response to features and performance advantages that have made Linux an attractive option to Microsoft customers.

One of these is the fact that Linux has less of a surface area, which led customers to believe that Linux is inherently more secure, Bill Laing, the general manager for Microsoft's Windows Server division, told eWEEK in an interview at its annual Windows Hardware Engineering conference here.

Surface area is the term IT managers use to discuss the overall resource footprint of a computer operating environment, including the amount of code, features, ports and other network resources that offer potential avenues for security attacks.

"Having less surface area does reduce the servicing and the amount of code you have running and exposed, so we have done a lot of work in 2008 to make the system more modular. You have the server manager; every role is optional, and there are more than 30 components not installed by default, which is a huge change," Laing said.

"We also have server core, which doesn't have the GUI [graphical user interface], so I would say that is a response to the options people had with Linux that they didn't have with Windows," he said.

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