Microsoft cancels many of its Forefront enterprise security products

Microsoft cancels many of its Forefront enterprise security products:

• Microsoft announced on September 12 via a post to the Server & Cloud blog that it is discontinuing quite a number of its Forefront products and  Many more enterprise security products are in line for extinction.
• Microsoft has already stopped some of its mainstream programs in order to make its product line more streamlined. Now, the company has stopped working on a number of Forefront enterprise security products and plans to integrate those security features into a number of other products.
• The announcement mostly affects Forefront products sold for hosted services

List of Forefront products will no longer be available for purchase from December 1, 2012.

• Forefront Protection 2010 for Exchange Server (FPE)
• Forefront Protection 2010 for SharePoint (FPSP)
• Forefront Security for Office Communications Server (FSOCS)
• Forefront Threat Management Gateway 2010 (TMG)
• Forefront Threat Management Gateway Web Protection Services (TMG WPS)

Two Forefront Products Survived from this Action are:

The blog explained that other Microsoft Forefront products will continue to be sold,They are

• Forefront Unified Access Gateway (UAG)
•  Forefront Identity Manager.

Reason for Dropping the Forefront Products:

• Microsoft reason for dropping so many of its Forefront enterprise-security products seem to be that other products are integrating some of the same functionality.
• Microsoft is integrating "basic antimalware protection" into Exchange Server 2013. SharePoint and Lync Servers include built-in security. DirectAccess and Routing and Remote Access Server VPN in Windows Server 2012 provide secure remote access for those customers.

For Existing Customers,

• Microsoft Continue to Support for FPE, FPSP, FSOCS, TMG upto DEC 31, 2015.
• Microsoft’s Mainstream Support for TMG ends on April 14, 2015 and extended support will ends on April 14, 2020.