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Windows 2003 End of Life: You DO Have Options

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NoWindows
On July 14, 2015, Microsoft officially halts support for Windows Server 2003 and will no longer provide security updates or other patches.

While Microsoft wants and expects you to jump forward to Windows Server 2012, this is not your only option.

“Insanity: doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.” – Albert Einstein 

Upgrading from Windows Server 2003 to 2012 R2 is more than just upgrading your operating system, it is a wholesale replacement of your infrastructure. Industry insiders call it a “fork lift upgrade”, as you need new server hardware, your new edition of Windows Server, and new Client Access Licenses (CALs) — all of which must be 64-bit. And with the new OS version, you will need to upgrade or replace anti-virus, backup/recovery, and other software and systems tied to old environment.

And for what? A new version file server that gives you the same capabilities as your current file server. Granted, Windows 2012 has new capabilities, but if you needed or wanted them, you would have already made the move.

“If you always do what you’ve always done, you’ll always get what you’ve always got.”  ― Henry Ford

You DO Have Options

We are the first to acknowledge that cloud-based solutions are the right choice for every business in every situation. Cloud computing, however, has matured to the point that you should always give it serious consideration.

Imagine an environment for your employees where:

  • Email is fast, efficient, and reliable; protected from spam; and easily accessible from phones and tablets
  • Users can manage their calendars and appointments on their computers, phones, and laptops, and can share calendars with project teams
  • Files are stored in a central, secure location, but are securely accessible from desktops, laptops, phones, and tablets with out burdensome and slow VPN or remote desktop tools
  • Data is protected by multiple daily backups
  • User can share files and work together without endless streams of emails and attachments
  • Users can communicate and share ideas within documents, via text, by voice, or by video conferencing with screen sharing — for no additional cost
  • Legacy desktop and server applications are accessible through a web browser
  • Desktops, laptops, phones, and tablets are protected from viruses and malware with a known-risk database up to 500 times greater than your current anti-virus solution
  • Users can work on laptops costing less than $400 that if lost, damaged, or stolen, will not allow access to your sensitive data

If a some (or all) of these sound interesting to you, if you want your team to work more productively, or if you simply want to grow your business instead of your business’ IT, let us know.

Maybe the cloud is right for you.

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SBS End of Life: Microsoft Punishes Small Businesses

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Don’t get me wrong.  Companies retire products all the time; New product road maps are a necessary and valuable part of the technology ecosystem.  How a vendor decides to retire a product, however, can be very telling with respect to how they view and treat their customers.  Let’s talk about Microsoft.

Last week, Microsoft announced it’s server options for MS Windows Server 2012, due out sometime later this year.  The announcement included three major components that, while they seem to be unrelated, both impact small and mid-size businesses.  With Windows Server 2012, Microsoft is:

  • Switching from per server to per CPU licensing.
  • Eliminating Small Business Server
  • Restricting which Server licenses can run on virtualized hardware.

In press interviews and its announcements, Microsoft is very clear that businesses running SBS must either now purchase separate Exchange and Sharepoint licenses or must move to the cloud (hopefully Office 365).   The impact, however,  is actually much greater for businesses with fewer than 75 users.

  • Companies with 25 or fewer users can get the new “Essentials” edition of Server 2012.  This version cannot, however, run in a virtual environment.  Small businesses cannot, therefore, buy one server and run Windows, Exchange, and Sharepoint servers virtually without licensing the more expensive Server 2012 Standard Edition.
  • The move to processor-based licensing will also push cost increases on small businesses.  Many SMBs have purchased quad processor boxes to deliver performance and support virtualization.  With a 2 processor limit on Server 2012 Standard Edition, many customers will need to double the number of paid Windows Server licenses.

Microsoft has made it clear that they expect SMBs to switch from SBS to a file server and run Exchange and Sharepoint in the cloud.  This option, too, will represent significant cost increases for SMBs given Microsoft’s pricing model for Office 365 and the need to upgrade specific Office 2010 versions for full functionality.

If this move seems coercive, it just may be.  As reported in PC World, Office 365 has not been the smash hit Microsoft predicted.  The company is not releasing sales or usage numbers.  As a Microsoft spokewoman quoted in the article stated:

“We’re not breaking out customer, user, or revenue numbers at this time”

And according to IDC Analyst Melissa Webster, “They’ll give metrics when the metrics are meaningful, demonstrating scale and depth.”

So with lackluster performance, Microsoft releases a licensing and pricing model that “encourages” SMBs to move into the cloud or pay a heavy hardware and licensing penalty for upgrading in-house systems.

Fortunately, small and mid-size businesses have alternatives.  Google Apps for Business and other services offer more cost effective solutions for email, communication, and collaboration than Office 365. Beyond moving the Exchange and Sharepoint components of SBS to Google Apps, businesses can deploy secure cloud-based file services with full drive letter mapping and network place integration; access from PCs, MACs, and mobile devices; and integrated security and backup/recovery services.