Despite fears about backwards-compatibility, Microsoft laid down the gauntlet to competitors with its long-awaited launch of Windows Server 2003 at a fairly low-key event in Sydney on Thursday.
Michael Leworthy, Windows Server product manager at Microsoft Australia, confirmed Windows Server 2003 was not compatible with Microsoft Exchange 2000, or with SharePoint Server Portal 2001.
"They're the only ones [that it's not backwards-compatible with]," he said. "People can just stay on 2000, which will be long-supported by Microsoft."
Windows Server 2003 could contribute to overall IT efficiency improvements of 30 percent for many businesses, he said.
"You're going to be able to scale higher than any other operating system out there and provide more productivity than any other operating system out there," Leworthy claimed.
Further, Windows Server 2003 was fully .NET compatible, opening opportunities to more completely harness the Internet in business applications, the company claimed.
One early adopter, Worley engineers, had integrated the beta 2 version six months ago and so far had experienced no unplanned downtime, Leworthy claimed, while another customer, global risk managers Det Norske Veritas, had reduced the TCO of its IT infrastructure by $1 million a year.
Calum Russell, infrastructure solutions manager at Microsoft Australia, said 220 applications and 86,000 partners - including 1,500 based in Australia - were ready for Windows Server 2003.
"This is the first stage of the Windows Server System - a whole system approach, changing the architecture of the Windows server environment. Over 70 percent of IT costs are on maintenance," he said.
Windows Server 2003 aims to significantly cut IT maintenance costs across the board, for example, by allowing more functions to be performed from one centralised server, incorporating more security features, and installing 25 fewer always-on functions.
This should allow businesses to free up funds for development and innovation, Russell claimed.
David Ralston, business development executive at Avanade, said clients were showing a lot of interest in the Windows Server 2003 platform. "There is a lot of pent-up demand from Windows 2000, and 2003 is going to drive that," he said.
Avanade, an official Microsoft partner, has assisted both AXA Insurance and Boral in their early-adopter implementations of Windows Server 2003.
Both companies were using Office and XP at the desktop. AXA Insurance kept its existing mail system, while Boral moved to Exchange 2003.
"The whole industry talks a lot about ROI and total-cost-of-ownership (TCO), but both Boral and AXA have been able to reduce the need for services in their backend. Bringing down maintenance costs, experiencing improved security and reliability," he said.
The consultancy has three more Windows Server 2003 implementations in the pipeline - one from the government sector, and two - "one quite large" - from the financial services industry, Ralston said.
Ralston said Avanade itself used Windows Server 2003 globally and found it a boon in server consolidation. "We have a lot of key and core skills already, but need a management infrastructure to understand them."
He said some ISVs hadn't built Windows Server 2003-compatible products in time for use by early adopters. However, most would now have caught up, Ralston believed.
Microsoft Windows Server 2003 is available in Datacenter, Enterprise, Standard and Web editions from today. A Small Business Server version will be released soon, Leworthy said.