Release 2 Nearing Release?
Windows Server 2003 R2 was supposed to ship this year, and I suppose it technically
did, as Microsoft
released
the OS to manufacturing. Volume shipments aren’t scheduled to begin
in earnest until next February. That could be a good thing. If it was widely
available soon, how many of you would end spending the holidays updating servers
to get new branch office, management and identity features?
R2 is not a revolution -- we’ll have to wait for Longhorn for that --
but it does have enough goodies to make the update worthwhile. Find out everything
you need to know about R2 in our sister site ENTmag.com’s special report
here.
CRM 3.0 Ready to Go
Microsoft continues to move upscale with the shipment
of the enterprise-class Dynamics CRM 3.0, a product that comes out of Project
Green -- the rewrite and integration of core Microsoft business apps. While
CRM is largely aimed at the big boys, there is a small business edition of the
Microsoft tool. Smaller shops can take business contacts from Business Contact
Manager and Outlook and move them to CRM 3.0.
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Another Virtual Price Cut
There’s been a lot of activity in the world of virtualization. One of
the most exciting bits of news is new licensing and price cuts from Microsoft,
especially when Longhorn ships and multiple instances of servers can be run
cheaply. There are good news in the near term, too, as those who buy Windows
Server 2003 R2 Enterprise Edition can get
Microsoft Virtual Server for half-off. Shops can run four servers in one
for the price of a single OS license, Microsoft says.
VMware 5.5 Released
Meanwhile EMC (which tries to hide the fact that it owns VMware) has released
5.5 of its workstation virtualization tool. The new rev supports 64-bit
guests, including Solaris, Linux and FreeBSD. That’s pretty good, as my
sense is that XP 64-bit isn’t fully baked and lacks solid driver support.
Have you had that experience with XP 64? Let me know at [email protected].
About the Author
Doug Barney is editor in chief of Redmond magazine and the VP, editorial director of Redmond Media Group.