Microsoft releases PowerShell
Bob Muglia, Microsoft's vice president of servers and tools, announced today the official release of PowerShell, an interactive command shell and dynamic scripting engine designed to simplify automation and administrative tasks on the Windows platform. Built to leverage Microsoft's .NET API, PowerShell exposes internal system functionality and gives system administrators more flexible mechanisms for manipulating Windows.
Although Microsoft decided not to ship PowerShell with Vista, it will be tightly integrated into the upcoming Windows Server release (codenamed "Longhorn server") and will also be available for download and supported on Windows XP, Windows Server 2003, and Windows Vista. PowerShell is an important part of Microsoft's new system management technologies and will be integrated with the company's new Systems Center Operations Manager 2007 which is scheduled for release early next year. PowerShell will also be used extensively in Microsoft Exchange Server 2007, System Center Virtual Machine Manager, and System Center Data Protection Manager.
Full story: ArsTechnica