Thursday, October 11, 2012

Windows Server 2012 Essentials RTM!! (and Eval today!)

Well, The product formerly known as Windows Small Business Server 2012, is finally at RTM!  This was the last version of SBS I had the pleasure of working on, owning the storage system from the ground up as well as the initial design of the Online Backup functionality.  Of course a lot of things change when you leave a team before the first major milestone, so I can’t wait to fire this one up and see where the teammates I left behind took this product.

According to the Office Blog Post on the RTM announcement, the product highlights include:

  • Enable a dynamic, modern work style with access from your devices by using Remote Web Access (RWA), and take advantage of Windows Phone 8 and Windows 8 devices for a superior experience with rich modern “My Server” apps.
  • Enjoy peace of mind knowing that your data is well-protected by complementing your on-site backups with Windows Azure Online Backup, as well as utilizing integrated support for the new Windows 8 File History feature.
  • Choose the email and collaboration option that’s right for you, whether that’s in the cloud with Office 365 or a hosted service provider, or running on a local server.
  • Quickly and easily respond to increasing data capacity needs with support for Storage Spaces, which allows you to create elastic, resilient storage for your files and folders.
  • Run the line-of-business applications that you depend on by leveraging our greatly improved application compatibility, now with a single logo certification for all Windows Server 2012 editions.
  • Purchase with confidence knowing that your technology investment can easily grow to Windows Server 2012 Standard if the needs of your business grow.
  • Deploy today with full support for 19 languages, all releasing simultaneously.

If you’re itching to try it like I am, you can pop on over to the evaluation center and download the trial version today, which is also on MSDN or TechNet if you prefer those.

Please join me in congratulating the team on another launch of a fantastic product for small businesses.  And we all know you’re going to hook it up to Office365 right?? Smile


1 comments:

Anonymous said...

Essentials is such a PITA.
Want to add exchange you need to hack the crap out of it.
I don't use MS cloud services.
Can't virtualize ?Why?
This server edition will sell less than Windows Home Server.
Add a real server to get rid of this thing, you need to cleanup all the useless GPO and migrate them to distribution instead.

Oh can't forget how your gone get smoked on licensing.
SBS 2011 Std was a great product sweet spot when you had 25 or more users.

I don't like being negative against Microsoft since I am a MCITP I honestly hope other vendors replace this trash with something that has more capabilities and is more affordable. I just hope this useless product fails miserably.