Windows Server Reference Guide

How to Serve an "Essential Business"

Last updated Apr 25, 2008.

Up until the 1990s, the modern business seemed somewhat capable of surviving without the aid of electronic networks; and yet for some reason, at some point, the network became indispensable.

If you can recall the very first local area networks, prior to the infusion of the Internet and the ubiquity of TCP/IP protocol, they were actually quite pointless. Working part-time as a technology consultant for law firms back in the early 1980s, at one time, I maintained a system that enabled attorneys to back up the contents of their desktop MS-DOS computers...but not to the server. Backup software of that time recognized floppy diskettes as the principal medium—only much later did software ever approach the topic of storing image backups on other hard drives.

So what was the point of the server? To provide attorneys equal access to the .EXE file for the backup program, of course. Without it, everyone would need individual copies of the software. And since that software came on floppy diskettes and was copy protected, there was no other easy way to share it. The first file servers were installed in small businesses as a way to enable users to share access to the same executable.

That's right: The first LANs were license bypassing mechanisms. When software manufacturers discovered that, of course, they created systems where license keys were stored locally on the C:\ drive. Then utility software was created to enable network users to authenticate their license from a single image of the license key on the file server.

Define "Essential"

In a quarter-century's time, a surprising dearth of interest has been generated among business managers and executives in their own foundations of information technology. As I learned in a February 2008 interview with Steven Van Roekel, a senior director in Microsoft's Windows Server Solutions division, small business leaders everywhere remain particularly disinterested. That's not always good news for folks in my position; I write and publish about technology for a living, in the hopes that there are interested people out there.

But Van Roekel's job is to sell two editions of Windows Server 2008 to small and medium businesses (SMBs): Small Business Server 2008 and a newer edition for the larger businesses in that SMB segment, called Essential Business Server, which is due to premiere in the second half of 2008. (I mentioned to him that it seemed odd to delegate the medium-sized businesses should get the essential version of Windows Server, but he laughed that off.)

Van Roekel told me this story: He has a brother-in-law who's a small business owner, and who's very impressed that he now has family working at Microsoft. He had Steven over to his office one day and was showing off his high-ranking family connection to his employees, when Steven asked to take a peek at the company's server.

"He had no idea where it was. To him, it's a service in the cloud. It provides him a set of services. He just doesn't know where it is," he told me.

As it turned out, the server was housed in whatever doubled for that business' lunch room...and it's a wonder nobody mistook the server for a microwave oven.

"We ask small business owners if they own a server, and a lot of them say, when you ask them to show it to you, they point to their cable modem," Van Roekel told me.

So it's not always possible for Microsoft or one of its multitude of sales partners to approach a business in that position with a message about the wonders of virtualization, or the mind-boggling power of PowerShell, or the benefits of role-based management.

"The way a partner would typically go in and sell a Small Business Server, say someone who's on Server 2000, for example, they would show them a smartphone," remarked Van Roekel. "They would say, 'Look how I get my e-mail! I've gotten an e-mail since I was sitting here, and oh, by the way, new shared calendaring. My assistant can actually put a meeting on my calendar in the office, and it appears here on my phone, like, ten seconds later.'"

Selling Server Software Via Your Cell Phone

The trick now—as it was 25 years ago—is to entice the small business owner with something cool but practical, something he or she can grasp right away. Making it possible for everyone to share the same software license (thus conceivably saving thousands!) was the "gotcha" of the 1980s; today, it's seeing networking flow through to a smartphone.

"[For] a small business sale, we know the mobile message tests four-to-one better than an IT message, in doing a sales engagement for small businesses," Van Roekel remarked.

What might have changed over all that time, I told him, is that now you've got to get the value proposition to fit in something the size of a Snickers.

Maybe, he responded; but then you've got to build off of that by showing the small business owner what he can do with that Web site he hasn't yet started up. Office Live Small Business is a subscription service for Small Business Server (SBS) or Essential Business Server (EBS) customers to set up their online storefronts. But that service is also available separately (for a fee, of course), and it sets up that Web domain on Microsoft's servers, not the customers'.

So technically, it's not a feature of Windows Server in either of these buildouts; but still, it's number two in the value proposition list for Microsoft's customers.

"You show them that sort of stuff, the Office Live features. [You tell them,] 'You've always wanted a Web site, and your customers aren't very impressed that your e-mail address is joe@comcast.net. Let's make it joe@smithcompany.com, and really amp this up a little bit and get you a Web site, and get you into search engines so you can finally be more presented.'

"Removing paper, streamlining processes, getting inventory better managed, getting digital cash registers into place, getting QuickBooks off Sally's machine down the hall, Bob's laptop's starting to make funny noises...it's stories like that...that really resonate with the small business owner," Van Roekel continued. "It's never about virtualization...well, with some small businesses, of course, it is, but for most, it's not about the advanced technologies. It's about, what is the unique business need...then we take it to the next level. Things like mobile [e-mail] and empowering your employees, the Web workspace, sells the product hands-down over any IT capabilities about the product itself."

References

• "Windows Essential Business Server Overview." Documentation from microsoft.com.

Books and E-books

• Neale, Eriq. Microsoft Small Business Server 2003 Unleashed. Sams Publishing, 2005. Preview Chapter 4, "Installing SBS 2003 SP1 on a New Server," on Safari.