Microsoft Corp.'s plans for a common set of services that promise its server platform products will work better together are being met with skepticism.

The Redmond, Wash., company next year will begin rolling out products for the Windows Server System family based on Microsoft's Common Engineering Roadmap, officials said. The move could help reduce complexity and provide customers with a standard set of criteria for all Windows Server System products, officials said, but the concept is already being panned. Jack Beckman, an application programming manager in Southfield, Mich., echoed the sentiment. Beckman said that although it's easier, faster and less expensive to use products from a single vendor that are designed to work together, such a scenario can lock the customer in to that vendor's products. Microsoft officials don't see it that way. "We aren't forcing anyone to do anything," said Andy Lees, corporate vice president for server and tools marketing. "It is also true that we can add more value by using the products in combination, and it is true that if you are using the latest version of a combination of products, that will be even more true."