DO MORE WITH LESS

Owners of small businesses say key factors for producing fiscal growth include acquiring and keeping new customers, marketing products and services to those customers, and keeping ahead of the competition. You need technology to realize all those factors, but technology is not your business - your business is making a product, selling a product, or providing a service. Every minute that you have to spend doing something else is time taken away from the real business of your business. Plus, the desire to be competitive often runs up against the fact of real-world budgets. You need to do more with less - less money, less time, and fewer resources.

Microsoft SBS2003 is a solution that is comprehensive, easy-to-manage, and probably the best value-for-money software available. Microsoft has taken all the components available to larger businesses and deployed them together in a single, integrated unit made to work together and specially designed for the small business, thereby giving you all the advantages of the "big guys" at a price suited to your pocket. Easy to setup and even easier to use, SBS2003 allows you to concentrate more time on what you went into business for.

The various applications are better integrated than ever before. New tools and wizards have centralized and simplified server management and tasks. Best of all, WSBS2003 allows companies with as few as two or as many as 75 computers to have an affordable, real client/server network with all the security and efficiencies that implies.

The underlying operating system for WSBS2003 R2 is Microsoft Windows Server 2003 R2, the latest version of Microsoft's mission-critical enterprise operating system and an appropriate choice for a small business suite of server products. Your business may be small but that doesn't make its systems any less mission-critical to you and your employees.

SBS2003 is available in two versions, Standard and Premium. Since both versions include Microsoft products that if bought individually would be considerably more expensive, you get a fully developed business solution that's a bargain to boot.

For no more than the price of a mid-level laptop, you get Microsoft Windows Server 2003, Windows SharePoint services, Exchange Server 2003, Routing & Remote Access firewall technology, fax server, Microsoft Outlook 2003, and five client licenses - and that's only the Standard Edition. This givies you a fully developed solution that includes all the essentials: email and Internet connectivity, an internal website, shared fax services, services for remote and mobile users, security, and more.

In the Premium Edition, you get all that plus Microsoft SQL Server 2000 to handle databases, Internet Security and Acceleration Server 2004, Enterprise class firewall, for firewall and web caching services, and Microsoft Office Front Page for internet and intranet design. All the technologies have been optimized to work as a unit for the small business user.

A SINGLE DOMAIN CONTROLLER

All components of WSBS2003 must be loaded on to a single machine, the domain controller. You can have other servers such as file and print servers, but none of the components of WSBS2003 can be run on a computer other than the domain controller.

A SINGLE DOMAIN

WSBS2003 and its clients constitute a single domain, single company. No trust relationship can be formed with other domains.

CLIENT LIMIT

WSBS2003 comes with five client access licenses (CALS). You can purchase additional licenses up to a maximum of 75, though WSBS2003 is designed to work best with no more than 50 users or devices. The client limit shouldn't restrict you except in the sense that 50 or more clients working off a single server is limiting. You are likely to want to change to a Windows Server 2003 network because of its ability to have multiple domain controllers long before you reach the client limit. If you do reach the limit, don't worry, since as with everything Microsoft, there is a simple and easy migration pack available.

SYSTEM REQUIREMENTS

Both versions of Windows Small Business Server 2003 require a 32-bit PC-style server with a 550 MHz or faster processor. Standard Edition requires 384 MB of RAM; Premium Edition requires 512 MB. Either version requires four to five GB of available disk space, but additional free space is required for data storage.

SUMMARY

To be competitive in today's world of commerce, you need the power of technology. You need to find and retain customers, market and sell to those customers, and do it better than anyone else. Small businesses have big needs but small budgets. WSBS2003 integrates all the services needed by small businesses into one easy to deploy and manage package at a very affordable price.