Looking At Windows Server
2003
We
had a little R&R last week, taking an afternoon outing with a
local VAR friend to a Microsoft Business Partner briefing on
Windows 2003. It was
held in a local cinemaplex, complete with free coupons for cokes
and popcorn and, frankly, the free t-shirt was the best part of
the event.
The
Microsoft presenter had clearly been doing too many road shows and
was in a rush to finish (he got us out of there a good hour ahead
of schedule), leaving most of the audience mystified as to just
how they were going to get customers in a sluggish economy excited
enough about an operating system to buy the upgrade.
That’s
too bad, because the new Windows 2003 Server is a lot better than
that. Fortunately,
Microsoft supplied attendees with some spiffy collateral – cards
printed with 10 reasons (each) to go with the new OS for current
Windows NT and Windows 2000 users, as well as a list of 10
benefits of the 2003 product.
They are all the things you’d expect to find – from
more robust security and tools to better integration and
enterprise class performance.
With
Sun out there pushing its Sun ONE Orion software stack on Sun
hardware (your choice of Solaris or Linux) and Linux hardware and
software being mentioned right out in the mainstream, we suspect
that Microsoft is going to have to do more than talk up
incremental features.
We’d
guess that pricing and bundled middleware are going to be
important elements of the Windows 2003 rollout story – which
will get started with a big bang in April.
Especially when IT managers continue to be conservative, as
noted in remarks by ZD analyst Cameron Sturdevant, commenting on
his visit to Microsoft’s Management Summit in Las Vegas.
“Most corporate IT managers I talk with are just getting
settled with Windows 2000,” he noted.
“Another OS migration, unless it comes with immediate,
substantial cost-control measures, isn't in the cards for
years.”
Of
course, there are lots of NT 4 users who badly need to upgrade
their servers and, for them, it will be time to go to Windows
2003, skipping the 2000 round entirely.
Microsoft will simply need to reassure them that the
software is shipping in such good condition that there’s no need
for the usual wait, as in the past, for the first round of fixes
to be applied.
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