Windows 2008 SBS and Essential Licensing and Pricing
Paul Thurrott has posted a fairly good review of the new packaging, licensing and pricing model Microsoft has put forth for the coming Windows Server Small Business Server 2008, and Windows Essential Business Server 2008 products. I admit, I had to read it twice to really begin to understand the fundamental differences from SBS 2003 R2 to SBS 2008, and then from SBS 2008 to WEBS 2008. "WEBS" huh. Hmmm. Another goofy acronymn to contend with.
I still have major problems accepting the Microsoft licensing and pricing methodology. No matter how it is explained to me, or by whom, it always seems fishy to me. Assigning value to an arrangement of bits is abstract enough, even if you try to apply tangible metrics like labor costs, marketing, packaging, etc. It reminds me of Statistics class back in college. Even though I had a 4.0 in that series of courses, in the end, it's a granite house of information structured on top of soupy mud. Anyone who's taken Stats knows what I'm talking about. That's what software licensing and pricing seems like to me. The dark arts. Anyhow, Paul's review is probably the cleanest, clearest possible attempt to make it understandible. They are both impressive products and should be considered by anyone currently running SBS or looking to move from a Windows workgroup environment to their first Windows server-based network environment.