Wednesday, December 03, 2008

Microsoft Action Pack Subscription (MAPS) and Retail

Nicholas King and David Fabritius have gotten together to give you a post on what’s different between the MAPS (Microsoft Action Pack Subscription) kit and the Retail kit.

You can view it over on Nicholas King’s Blog.

When you receive your MAPS media you’ll get the following;

  • Windows Small Business Server 2008 DVD 1 – Installs SBS 2008 as we know it (ala Standard)
  • Windows Server 2008 Standard  32 bit and 64 bit editions
  • Microsoft SQL Server 2008 Standard 32 bit and 64 bit editions

Here’s the catch – In MAPS you wont get the media that is branded SBS Premium.  Why did we do this you might ask?  Well in fact we have three reasons.

  1. Cost of the MAPS kit and getting to you guys as quickly as possible.  By reusing the Windows and SQL media, we’re able to keep the costs low for all of you subscribing to MAPS. 
  2. Reducing the number of duplicate disks makes it easier for you to manage all of the different medias we send on a monthly basis
  3. The environment – reducing the amount of media, transportation costs, saving fluffy rabbits and rainbows are great for the environment

How does this differ from setting this up with the branded media?  If you’re deploying in an SBS target network with less than 75 users then there is no difference.


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