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Microsoft releases Windows Server 2003 R2
Strauss writes "Windows Server 2003 R2 was launched. Press coverage by eWeek and BetaNews. [Insert here some FUD/funny question about Microsoft Windows future]"
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Frankly, 2K3 was a pig for us, can't imagine SP2 would make that much difference. I didn't set the servers up (consultants did before I arrived) and the performance was rotten and this was for a small company. We had three servers (dual Xeon boxes) to provide basic e-mail, print and file services. Reliability was poor as was performance. I built a small test Fedora server on a P4 2.0Ghz box and it performed so well we switched our small group of users over. It is doing everything the 2K3 servers were doing and more. Best of all, it plays nice with our mixture of clients. Of course, the Windows users have grumbled a bit because they couldn't use Outlook any more since calendaring now runs of webdav but thunderbird is a better mail client anyway. The calendar still needs work but it is OK. Anyway, at least I get to convert the old servers over to Linux now. Mostly the transition has been very smooth and performance and reliability are substantitally better. Oh, and all this talk of CALs. That was what did it for management, we looked at the costs as we grew and realised that switching now rather than later would make the switch much easier and allow us to scale up without constantly paying MS to use hardware we already bought just because we wanted more users. MS got where it is by being the cheap guy. I guess they realised why IBM and co were so expensive in the end, you have to keep raising your prices so it still looks like you are growing when you have in fact matured into a saturated market.