Friday, July 6, 2012

Windows Small Business Server to bid goodbye

 

Greetings !

I just read that Microsoft has announced that there will be no more editions of Windows Small Business Server Standard . The current product is Small Business Server 2011 . When Windows Server 2012 is released, the corresponding Small Business Server edition will be missing.

Just to refresh , the Small Business Server or SBS for short was a huge success in small business all over the World ! The peak was SBS 2003. Our Company TechGyan implemented many SBS suites for our Customers.  We also won our first Worldwide award in 2007 based on the  Solution we implemented around SBS . The SBS was limited to 75 users and was packaged with Windows Server, Exchange Server, SQL Server and then ISA Server . Great Solution at a great price. We loved it.Our Customers loved it.

Then the Cloud came in around 2010. For Small Business it made more sense to move Exchange & Collaboration to the Cloud. In June 2011 , Microsoft launched Office365 , its State Of the Art offering on the Cloud for Customers large and Small. At TechGyan , we began to see a trend of Customers moving to the Cloud especially in the Small and Mid sized space . We took a call to focus on the Cloud for SMB Customers. I personally felt Cloud was a very compelling story for the SMB.

So when I read this news that Microsoft will not refresh SBS and the 2011 edition will be the last , I was sad . Read the official blog here . But at the same time,  my personal opinion is that this was inevitable. Many partners are upset . But !

So folks , SBS is dead ( will be available till June 2013 ). Long live the Cloud !

 

with warm regards
Suresh Ramani
www.TechGyan.com
Microsoft MVP 2009
Microsoft Worldwide Partner of the Year 2011 & 2007