The scenario: we are a multinational ISV planning to streamline the distribution of our updates and patches. Installation options should be there but we're mainly interested in the discover, get (and possibly distribute) functionality. We're also interested in how such software would be licensed, since there probably also needs a run a component at the customer's side. In an exploration of enterprise-worthy software distribution (updates/patches) I have come to the conclusion that it's not that easy to find such a thing. I ended up with a list of hobbyist++ type of software that are not worth spending money on and that our customers would never trust to install on their servers. The question is actually three-fold; 1 - Are there any enterprise-worthy solutions out there at all? 2 - Does Microsoft have software for these scenarios, SCCM for example? (Examples of ISV's using it, if possible) 3 - How does licensing work, or to be more general: how do packages end up at the customer? I hope I have provided enough information, please let me know if I'm not verbose enough to answer my questions. Thanks very much in advance. David

#1/#2: The scenario you descibed is rather complex, but ConfigMgr can basically do what you asked for. #3: what has licensing to do with distributing packages? Could you please clarify what you want to know exactly?

I mean that such a solution probably requires components to run on our side as well as on customers' side? Which of these components are included in (for example) SCCM? And are there limitations in how many client components can be installed, or how exactly does this work? Sorry if I'm a little vague, but I just have no experience in this field and how these solutions would work. The documentation that I could find on SCCM it not very clear about all this, and doesn't answer my questions. If you think the Microsoft offering is not exactly what we need, can you point me to solutions that fit our problem better? Thanks again, David