Greetings from Dallas at the SMB Summit, where 400+ channel partners are gearing up for Windows Essential Server Solutions. Small Business Server 2008 is the topic du jour, tomorrow is all about Essential Business Server 2008 for midsized companies. The Microsoft team is here in force, providing technical sessions, hands on labs (powered by HP hardware), and Read more
The team behind Windows Essential Business Server 2008 for midsized companies (part of the newly announced Windows Essential Server Solutions family and formerly known as “Centro”) has launched a team blog. Group Program Manager Eric Watson provides the introduction: In this Blog, key people that design and develop the product will discuss all of those Read more
In the course of talking to many Microsoft partners and customers, the Windows Small Business Server team has learned that there are sometimes misperceptions about the product, in many cases based on experiences with the earlier versions of SBS. In hopes of dispelling some of these “myths,” the team has created a video log by an “SBS guru” named Tom. Take Read more
Today we announced Windows Essential Business Server as the official name for Windows Server codename “Centro,” our upcoming IT solution designed for mid-sized organizations. We unveiled details about the product, available here, as well as an initial set of hardware and software partners supporting the solution. Check out more about applying for the private beta. Microsoft Read more
FYI next week on Tuesday, June 12th we will begin releasing Windows Server 2003 SP2 through Automatic Updates (AU.) To ensure more control over when and how SP2 is deployed, users will need to click on the AU “Updates are ready to install” balloon notification, accept the end user license agreement and go through Read more
Based on customer feedback and requests, we have improved the Windows Update, Automatic Update and WSUS user install experience with Windows Server 2003 SP2. The experience is now more like that with Windows XP SP2 , meaning Windows Update End User License Agreement (EULA) acceptance and a Welcome screen will now be part of installation Read more
Good news for the many IT pros that support branch office systems. Today Microsoft and Packeteer jointly announced a new Windows-based branch office box: the Packeteer iShaper. iShaper builds on an ongoing partnership between MS and Packeteer, combining Packeteer’s WAN optimization and application acceleration with Windows Server and ISA technology. That means customers can better ensure reliable, Read more
Windows Home Server has reached the Beta 2 milestone! While previous releases have been tested by 1000+ Microsoft employees and some of our hardware and software partners, we are now starting to invite a broader group of external testers to participate in Beta 2. People interested in participating in Beta 2 can register here so we have Read more
Check out the new Windows Server virtualization calculator to get an estimate on the number of OS licenses needed, and the costs, to virtualize different datacenter configurations. The calculator is pre-populated with the US dollar Open agreement Estimated Retail Prices for Standard Edition, Enterprise Edition and Datacenter Edition (yellow chart below), which you can update with your organization’s Read more
Back in March, IDC published a report that surprised many. The results of IDC’s study – a survey of 400 Unix/RISC customers – showed that Windows Server was the leading platform (on a units basis) for Unix migrations. This result is counter to the popular thinking that the vast majority of IT shops migrate to Read more
Reuters/Tokyo reports that Intel is set to announce a new Xeon processor line, to date it has been codenamed Woodcrest. The article reads in part: Intel executives have previously said the new chip would deliver an 80 percent gain in performance with a 35 percent reduction in power use. The timing is interesting because I Read more
Server virtualization is really not a new concept. Virtualization for the mainframe platform was available in the early 1970’s as a way to securely and reliably share the server resources among different operating system instances and the applications they supported. In the last few years, virtualization for volume servers has not only greatly improved technically, Read more
