Microsoft to lead SMBs to the cloud with new Windows server

Microsoft to lead SMBs to the cloud with new Windows server
I'm keeping my fingers crossed that Microsoft's newest Small Business Server, codenamed “Aurora” works great. If so, Microsoft will be doing a big service for the small and mid-sized business -- leading them gently to the cloud. A preview version of Aurora was released by Microsoft yesterday.

The next-generation of SBS created quite a bit of buzz in July during Microsoft's annual worldwide partner conference. It is a Windows Server 2008 R2 build billed as a hybrid server that operates both on-premises and links to cloud services.

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Microsoft's marketing details are fairly scant when it comes to exactly what Aurora will do in the cloud. (Here's a PDF of the SBS "Aurora" Brochure.) It is unclear if it will offer users access to an Azure-like infrastructure, where they can upload their own applications. I'm a little doubtful that it will, but am liking what Microsoft has said about cloud support so far. The server will allow users to integrate pay-as-you-go and third-party SaaS services such as online storage or security monitoring. Presumably, it will let users access Microsoft services such as Windows Live. And Microsoft has said it will link to Microsoft's own hosted software offering, known as Business Productivity Online Suite (BPOS). This suite includes Exchange Online, SharePoint Online, Office Live Meeting, and Office Communications Online.

The VAR guy is similarly hopeful about the product. He writes,

"The VAR Guy is paying particularly close attention to SBS Aurora. During recent meetings with a range of VARs, channel partners indicated that SBS 2008 sales were a bit slower than expected because customers weren’t ready to open their wallets for new hardware. But SBS Aurora potentially changes the rules of the game. By integrating with a range of cloud and managed services, some MSPs may wind up promoting SBS Aurora as the foundation for customers’ hybrid cloud systems."

As the latest SMB product, it, too, supports only up to 25 clients. Microsoft is also working on what seems to me to be a successor to the Essential Business Server product, which it killed off this summer because no one needed a product that sat between SBS and the low-end WS2008 was cut off at 75 client licenses and offered fewer features than the standard editions of Windows Server 2008 (albeit for a lower price).

But if at first you don't succeed, try again by naming the product "7". So it is with Windows Small Business Server 7, which like the dead EBS and supports more users than SBS, in this case, up to 75 users. However, curiously, Microsoft has not yet proclaimed SBS 7 to be a cloud/premises hybrid. Without that, what's the point? So we'll see it how it goes this time.

SBS Aurora does all the usual things you would expect it to do, including running Windows applications with promised "tight integration" with Windows 7 and Office 2010. The brochure doesn't say if any fancy WS2008 R2 features are supported such as BranchCache, which improves the speed of downloading documents remotely, or DirectAccess, a VPN replacement. It also adds improved backup and recovery tools and an improved (but supposedly also simplified) management console.

Microsoft has a big opportunity with this server to bring small businesses into the cloud, without making them give up the Windows tools they depend on. SMBs make up an enormous number of Microsoft's most faithful customers -- in large part because they are serviced by resellers that take the sting out of managing IT for them. SMBs are most likely to the see the costs benefits of BPOS and other cloud services, too. They can act as a proving point for the cloud to help convince an enterprise to use the cloud for its bigger, more expensive and more demanding apps.

So I have my fingers cross that the latest incarnation of SBS lives up to its successful predecessors. Here's the link to join the beta program and download the preview version.