With windows 2003 released way back in the April ’03, it is widely available in the market by now. Some hosting companies have already upgraded to the 2003 version of the Windows Server, while other still persisted on using Windows 2000.
One of the main concerns with Windows platform is security. It is buggy and full of holes at best, even on the finalized versions. This could be a marketing ploy to bring users into buying extra upgrades or to be dependable on Microsoft for some reason or the next. Either way, everyone will question its security measures.
Microsoft has said that Windows 2003 Server is shipped secure. The reason the product is said to be secure by Microsoft officials is because in default configuration IIS (Internet Information Server) is disabled. Web hosting companies will have to turn on the web server to serve web pages for their clients. The big question is if the software will still be secure once the web server is turned on.
Still, Microsoft promises that the Windows Server 2003 web edition will allow web hosting companies to save more. Microsoft has announced a new Web Edition with the release of the Windows 2003 Server. There are no Client Access Licenses (CALs) and the cost is significantly less at a price of $399. The price tag for the Standard Edition is $999, which is the same as it is for Windows 2000, says Microsoft’s Windows 2000 site. With a $600 dollar per server savings, the hosting industry will start seeing more competitors in the budget-hosting segment with servers running on Windows 2003 Server; a segment now only containing a handful of Windows hosts.
Servers running open source operating systems like FreeBSD and Linux currently fill the budget hosts segment of the market. Microsoft has seen this as an issue for a while now and is expecting the addition of the Web Edition to allow more budget hosting packages on the Microsoft operating system. The trend for non-Windows based hosting companies to start deploying services based on the Web Edition of the Windows 2003 Server has already started thanks to Microsoft’s new licensing and pricing structure.
The real test for Windows 2003 Server will be if developers will want to rush to it or not. Microsoft said they have made some major stability changes to IIS 6.0, which ships with Windows 2003 Server. The developers that were contacted to see if they were rushing to get their hands on Windows 2003 Server did not have definitive answers. One developer said “I have not had much time to even look at the differences so I cannot give an answer to that question.”
One thing is for sure; Microsoft has released its Web Edition of the server to compete against the open source alternatives. Now Microsoft just has to hope developers will bite at the chance to get hosting for about the same cost as the open source alternatives.
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