The arrival of Microsoft Exchange Server 2003 (ES2K3) is a significant event in the history of this product. First, it brings to a close the second era of the codebase. Released back in 1996 on the NT 4 wave, ES4 (there was no 1, 2 or 3) brought enterprise-level email, contact management, diary management and so forth to the Windows Server platform in a new and comprehensive BackOffice application.

A disappointingly modest number of improvements, although they’re well integrated into the complete suite.

Despite various attempts at Windows Desktop alternatives, Linux is still best suited to servers, for which Red Hat is by far the most popular choice. With this in mind, it came as no surprise when in May 2002 Red Hat split its product line in two: Linux and Enterprise Linux.

Useful new features and a total interface overhaul make this the best Office ever.

It has been over two years since we previewed Office XP, but Microsoft has finally given us a glimpse of Office 2003. The finished version should be on the shelves by the end of July, but will it be worth the upgrade? The answer could be an emphatic 'yes' if you're a Tablet PC user, as Microsoft has just launched OneNote (see page 59), making full use of electronic ink. The company is also introducing InfoPath (see page 59) for designing electronic forms, with the flexibility of XML. The classic apps have also had their seen refurbishment, with Outlook (page 56) getting the most attention, and FrontPage and Publisher (page 58) a bit of a revamp.

It might seem unfair comparing MYOB’s best selling single user product with Quicken’s multi-user small business accounting package, but the key difference between the two is number of licences and not the functionality.

Not only is SuSE Linux Professional 8.1 the most complete distribution, it's also one of the friendliest.

FrontPage used to pride itself on its almost code-free approach to Web design, but not any more. Top of the new coding features is the Split View, which combines layout and HTML views. There are also improved code formatting and Auto-complete features, providing a drop-down list of context-sensitive options as you type. Auto-complete also handles regularly reused code snippets and works with HTML, CSS, XSL, JavaScript, JScript, VBScript and ASP .NET, which are all directly editable.

Improvements all round keep PowerPoint well ahead of the competition.

To be fair, if you were going to deploy Netware 6, you would have a trained Novell engineer (CNE) configure it on a Netware 6-certified box from a major manufacturer. We, nevertheless, decided to wipe our Windows 2000 clone server and start afresh with Netware.

Being enterprise software, one usually needs considerable expertise and time to obtain optimal performance and functionality. This is especially true for a product as comprehensive and feature rich as Lotus Domino 6.5 which is fully programmable and can provide workflow, knowledge management, document management, archiving, database and collaboration services via a client-server or browser based thin client model.

Superpowered and workgroup friendly with great features, but with a steep learning curve for administrators. Find out what the "other" side of the server world looks like

Easy to set up and administer; has all the advantages which Linux offers.

Enact comes with the complete box and dice including application software, database, web-server and application server and the server can be run on a basic Windows XP Professional desktop. While the Java-based interface can be a bit buggy and slow at times, it is generally clearly set out and easy enough to use.

By sticking with the same intuitive management console, the latest version of Computer Associates' (CA) antivirus software remains notably easy to use, and has increased its coverage by adding new virus-scanning capabilities for PDAs, plug-ins for a variety of gateways, and protection options for Microsoft Exchange and Lotus Notes/Domino. You also get remote browser access and the option to designate secondary signature servers, which clients will use if the primary distribution server fails.

Acer has sacrificed overall power in favour of features with this moderate little system.

It's expensive, but the YES Box successfully marries high-end and consumer features in a flexible and scalable device.

Easy to use, and with space for a second SATA disk, but it struggles with small files and is overpriced for the features.

Formerly called Redmond Linux, Lycoris is probably the most Windows-like Linux around.

Dells all-black PowerEdge is certainly one of the coolest-looking systems of the bunch, but the 600SC also packs enough power to be a formidable SMB server