Microsoft to raise Windows Small Business Server price 80 percent

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RE: Microsoft to raise Windows Small Business Server price 80 percent

We have installed about two dozen SBS 2003 servers since it's inception for companies ranging in size from 5 employees to 35. For the price, these customers hosting their own email is less expensive than hosted Exchange, and far better in performance. The features provided by the combination of Outlook/OWA and Exchange are also far better than other systems. For example, w/o this combo employees cannot readily share contacts and calendars - which are in strong demand among our clients - without kludgy 3rd party solutions that can still cost money. So in contrast, our experience is that most small businesses are in fact prime candidates for their own Exchange server. But many of these same customers have also become dependent on Sharepoint and seamless remote access to their Desktops in the office. I would hardly say that SBS is overkill for small business. It is if they truly only need file and print sharing, but this is rare for small businesses. As for tech costs, we find that customers with and without SBS spend the same amount for IT support. So in reality the SBS customers spend less because they're getting more value.

As for my opinion on the price increases, the cost of SBS is still less expensive than the price of Windows Server and Exchange combined, but of course as they have always done, Microsoft establishes market share then dramatically increases the price. To me that's just bullish.

I am more concerned by the ever-growing "fat" and complexity of Microsoft software which even on decent hardware still tends to be sluggish. While I tend to be a command-line junkie, the fact that many common admin tasks can be performed only in the management shell in Exchange 2007, rather than the GUI, bothers me considerably. All of this makes me question why we have to pay more for it.

I honestly wish that there was a Linux solution that could compete feature-to-feature with SBS, one that was widely supported by hardware manufacturers. But alas there is not and probably won't be for sometime so we will suffer for yet another few years.

Posted by: itsupport@...   Posted on: 05/13/08 You are currently: a Guest | Members login | Terms of Use

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