With Windows Essential Server Solutions, Microsoft is out to make mom-and-pop shops look like global multinationals and to give dinky IT shops the brawn of the big boys.Microsoft on Feb. 20 is spreading its arms to draw its SMB and midmarket servers under one roof, announcing what its calling a new family, the Windows Essential Server Solutions family.
The new product family will encompass both the companys small business and its midmarket servers, with licensing and migration paths to ease the move from one to the other. Specifically, the family entails an update to Microsofts Small Business Server, code-named Cougar, and the companys midmarket server, code-named Centro and now dubbed Microsofts Windows Essential Business Server.
Microsoft first mentioned Centro in 2005 and then gave more details and a final name for the midmarket server on Nov. 7.
Microsofts aim is clear: Its after some 31.9 million small businesses and 1.2 million midsize companies worldwide that it claims are in need of powerful IT solutions but which lack the staff to get them there, according to Bob Kelly, corporate vice president at Microsoft, as quoted in a release.
Windows Essential Business Server is aimed at midsize businesses with small IT departments, whereas Small Business Server 2008 is aimed at those with basically none at all.
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