Biggest server launch in MS history

BANGALORE: Microsoft has launched its flagship product, Windows Server 2003 on April 24^th in India. Simultaneously, Microsoft also announced the availability of Visual Studio.NET 2003 and the 64 bit edition of SQL Server 2000. The cost of the global launch campaign is expected to run upto $200 m.

The ad campaign on 24^th will include the first-ever TV campaign for a Windows Server product, as well as print, online and outdoor advertising targeting both IT decision makers and senior business decision makers in medium to large sized organizations.

Early adopters for Windows Server 2003 include companies like ICICI, Telco, and Infosys. In addition, the Andhra Pradesh government announced that it will migrate the e-seva project and the Karnataka government announced that it will use Windows Server 2003 for the next phase of its Bhoomi implementation.

Windows Server 2003 comes in many flavors. The Standard, Enterprise and Datacenter are present in Windows 2000 also. What’s new is the Windows Server 2003 Web Edition. Also, the Enterprise and Datacenter editions now come in 64-bit versions. The 64-bit version is expected to especially significant and Microsoft is expected to announce extended support for Intel’s Itanium 2 chip on April 24th.

The Windows Server 2003 adds to the multitude of Windows operating systems that already exist. In 2002 itself, Microsoft has doubled the number of versions of various Windows operating systems. Is this causing confusion among users? But Microsoft says that the many versions are necessary — to cater to various segments.

What’s with the .NET tag?

Visual Studio .NET 2003 has it, Windows Server 2003 doesn’t. "The .NET confusion was because of over-enthusiastic marketing on our part. Visual Studio .NET is the development platform that developers can use to build .NET apps, and program to various servers such as Windows Server 2003, and all other .NET connected products. .NET connected is like a logo or certification that is attached to products, which had earlier erroneously been attached with the .NET tag.", Ingitaraj clarifies.

What’s new with Visual Studio .NET 2003?

Intellisense and an improved debugger. Intellisense is a new feature in the code editor that "remembers" of the most recently used members. The enhanced debugger displays more readable and intuitive views of data, helping you detect and fix errors in your code before deployment. The Visual Studio .NET 2003 also includes the Visual Studio .NET compact edition for mobile device development.

"The latest version is an overall improvement and offers some attractive features — like - if you type "public override (space)", you"ll get a dropdown of all the properties and methods that you can override. You can select one of those options and after you do, the editor creates a method or property, which is ‘pass through’ to the base class, and you can modify it from there", says Saumit Kar, who has tried the beta version of Visual Studio 2003.

Will these new features ensure that developers upgrade to the new version. "I agree, upgrading from Visual Studio .NET 2002 to the latest version is just an incremental upgrade. But Visual Studio .NET 2003 with Windows Server 2003 is a powerful combination. Or if you are developing applications for the mobile platform, you need VS .NET 2003", Daniel Ingitaraj sums up.