Microsoft Small Business Server 2008 Beta Review

July 22, 2008 —

The best selling small business server from Microsoft gets a refresh soon, and I had the chance to play with the beta software and write about it in Network World. The review is entitled “SBS 2008: Same old bundle with new Vista wrapper.”

If you're a small business with fewer than 75 people, your Microsoft reseller will be knocking on your door at the end of the year to put this upgrade in your budget for 2009. Microsoft swears SBS 2008 will ship in November, but it will likely slip a little and few people upgrade expensive items like servers during the holidays. Plan for upgrades in January or February. SBS resellers should be making buckets o'bucks next spring and summer.

Unfortunately for small businesses, the small business file server market has been abandoned by every vendor except Microsoft. Novell used to provide some competition before they went Loony for Linux. Their product actually had quite a few more features than SBS from Microsoft, but the quot;geniuses" killed it for a year or more waiting for the Linux version.

Now Novell has a Linux-based version again, at least I think they do, and no one cares. That's what happens when you leave the market to Microsoft – hey take over. Of course, they had taken over the server market earlier because of Novell's long history of management stupidity, so this is just one more example for the Stupid Wall of Shame at Novell.

Yes, many small companies sell Network Attached Storage devices that can act as file servers to some degree, but few if any match the Microsoft feature set. Many business owners believe Microsoft's option is the only option, and unless they have a trusted technology advisor to help them find alternatives, they stick with Microsoft.