What's Up with Windows Upgrades? Big News on the Server; Not Much on the Desktop Eric Grevstad
Mon 3/31/03 -- Both the desktop and server editions of Microsoft Windows 2000 debuted in February 2000. The software giant's next desktop operating system, Windows XP, appeared in October 2001. But it's taken an extra 18 months to polish the successor to Windows 2000 Server: Microsoft just released Windows Server 2003 to manufacturing last Friday, for an official launch on April 24.
The reason, Microsoft freely admits, is that while consumer PC vendors crave new releases timed to hit holiday shopping seasons, enterprise IT managers are more conservative -- they won't switch platforms until there's (a.) a solid reason to replace what's already working for them, and (b.) next to no chance of teething troubles or undiscovered bugs. That's why so many companies -- at least half of Windows server users, according to market analysts -- are still running 1996's Windows NT Server 4.0 or even 1995's NT 3.51.
Microsoft says Windows Server 2003 will give even the stubbornest holdouts irresistible reasons to upgrade, claiming it's the best-performing, highest-quality Windows server platform to date and able to boost IT infrastructure productivity up to 30 percent.
The company is especially keen to convert NT Server 4.0 diehards, saying the new operating system permits systems that are 40 percent more stable and 100 times more scalable; yielding performance twice as fast across all workloads; needing 20 to 30 percent fewer servers; and offering a 20-percent reduction in overall costs -- including half the deployment costs and one-tenth the cost per transaction of NT Server 4.0 at its debut. And a line-by-line audit of the Windows Server 2003 code -- all 50 million lines of it -- promises unmatched security and reliability.
WinPlanet focuses on the desktop and notebook or client side of computing, but the new Windows Server is big enough news for us to offer an introduction -- and take the opportunity to sort out the status of various Windows versions and upgrades which you may have heard about, such as the codenames "Longhorn" and "Blackcomb." The bottom line? IT managers should pay close attention to Microsoft's new server offerings, even though -- despite the April 24 hoopla -- they're still in many ways a work in progress. For PC end users, however, today's Windows XP will continue well beyond tomorrow.
New Software for New Hardware
Windows Server 2003 is the final name of the OS that Microsoft formerly said would be called Windows Server 2002, then Windows .Net Server 2003, before its latest re-repositioning of the marketing message for its still-confusing-customers-after-almost-three-years .Net initiative for XML Web services or software-as-a-service applications. (The latest tweak is a ".Net Connected" logo for various products, including Windows Server 2003, that help share information across various systems and devices.)
Windows Server 2003 is available in four flavors. One, the $397 Web Server Edition, is a single-purpose operating system for hosting Web sites and services using the Internet Information Services (IIS) 6.0 Web server also included in the other editions; it supports either one- or two-CPU (two-way multiprocessing) servers with up to 2GB of RAM.
Windows Server 2003 Standard Edition is a 32-bit operating system priced at $999 with five client access licenses (CALs) or $1,199 with 10, with additional CALs priced at $199 for five or $799 for 20. It supports up to 4-way multiprocessing and 4GB of memory.
The Enterprise Edition ($3,999 with 25 CALs) is available in both 32- and 64-bit versions, the latter for Intel's Itanium CPU family -- AMD's 64-bit Opteron processor, debuting the same week as the new Windows Server, will initially be supported only in 32-bit mode. The Xeon and Itanium Enterprise Editions support 32GB and 64GB of memory, respectively, along with 8-way multiprocessing and 8-node clustering.
Finally, the biggest enterprises can inquire about pricing for the 32- or 64-bit Datacenter Edition, suitable for 8- to 32-way servers with up to 64GB or 64-way servers with half a terabyte of memory, respectively.
