But Wait, There's More

• Microsoft last week released the Small Business Server edition of its Windows 2003 operating system to manufacturing last week, which means that OEMs will start taking orders for it now and the IT channel will soon have shrink-wrapped boxes of the code to sell to companies. Windows SBS 2003, like its predecessors in the Windows 2000 line, is a stripped-down, integrated, simplified version of the Windows stack that is aimed at smaller companies with small IT budgets and little or no IT staff. Windows SBS 2003 will come in two flavors. The standard edition includes the Windows Server 2003 operating system for print, file, and application serving. Microsoft's Windows SharePoint Services instant messaging and collaboration software is bundled in, as is Exchange Server 2003, the new e-mail and calendaring server. Microsoft also tosses in a Shared Fax Service, which lets company employees share a single virtual fax machine, running on the SBS box. The premium edition of Windows SBS 2003 adds Microsoft's Internet Security Accelerator Server, its Office FrontPage 2003 Web development tool, and a license to the SQL Server 2000 database. The standard edition will cost $599, including the cost of five Client Access Licenses. The premium edition will cost $1,499 with five Client Access Licenses. Additional licenses will cost $99.
  
  

• Dell was the first of the big server makers to endorse the new Windows Small Business Server 2003 bundled package this week. Dell announced that it would be offering the Standard Edition of Windows SBS 2003 on low-end PowerEdge 400SC servers for $999. Dell is selling a base 400SC server with a 2.26 GHz Pentium 4, 512 MB of main memory, a 40 GB disk, and Windows 2003 Standard Edition, plus a whole bunch of other features and services options, for just under $1,894, with a $150 rebate dropping the price to $1,744. Stripping out the $799 license to Windows Server 2003 Standard Edition cuts the price to $945 for a base machine. If Dell is selling a reasonable base hardware configuration of the PowerEdge-SBS bundle, this is a much better deal than buying a PowerEdge machine and installing Small Business Server yourself. The Small Business Server bundle was not on Dell's site at press time.
  
  
• The attention devoted to offshoring IT services is heating up as more and more North American and Western European families lose primary bread-winners, while companies pad their bottom lines by taking advantage of cheap overseas labor. Last week, Gartner weighed in on the topic by explaining what it thinks companies need to do to compete against those that outsource. The increasing use of offshore resources in IT is part of a larger, historic economic trend of moving work from countries with high labor rates to regions with lower labor rates. What's different now is the lightning speed with which offshore services have become a mainstream reality that won't disappear once the Western economies recover. To win against this type of competition, Gartner says, businesses need to go directly at the inherent weaknesses in the offshoring paradigm. The best approach is to increase face-to-face interaction, to direct customers' attention to business value, rather than price, and to raise the bar on commodities such as innovation and quality. In addition, Gartner analysts are advising large IT services vendors (those with engagements exceeding $1 million) to establish an offshore partnering or acquisition strategy.
  
  
• The sometimes collaborative relationship between IT adversaries IBM and Microsoft was on display last week as the two companies patted each other on the back and described how their advanced Web services specifications are being developed so that even disparate computer systems can interoperate harmoniously. Both companies are interested in promoting Web services, a technology that still requires development before it gains the business-critical functionality that most decision-makers require. Cooperation between IBM and Microsoft in developing Web standards has been ongoing for more than a year. To demonstrate what this cooperative venture has yielded, the companies laid out a scenario using the disparate infrastructures of three hypothetical companies--an automotive dealer, a manufacturer, and a supplier--to conduct a business transaction using Microsoft and IBM software, a Linux operating system, and Web services specifications. Because of the advanced specifications, officials from both IBM and Microsoft noted that it's no longer necessary to use the same systems or to develop the applications at the same time. Microsoft chairman Bill Gates said, "This is a set of standards that we hope to see implemented, not just in .NET and WebSphere but also in many other vendors' products." Both Gates and IBM's senior vice president in charge of software, Steve Mills, said that the next move is to seek vendor and customer feedback on issues such as security, reliable messaging, and transactions before submitting their work to a standards body.
  
  
• Warehouse management solution provider Manhattan Associates, in a move to provide customers with the capability for direct transmission of SKU-specific data via UCCnet, has integrated webMethods Item Synchronization. The product delivers SKU information, including package dimension and weight and number of pieces. It is information that, company officials say, many companies do not have the capability of synchronizing with retailers and other partners. The consumer packaged goods industry, in which companies are showing a growing interest in UCCnet, could find the Item Synchronization tool useful in dealing with suppliers and customers, as well as in integrating product data with enterprise back-end systems. Manhattan Associates and webMethods announced their partnership in May.
  
  
• The consumer packaged goods industry also heard from IBM last week, as Big Blue built a fire around an ongoing project and prospective service that takes advantage of radio frequency identification technology (RFID) for inventory control, product tracking, and expediting payments. The RFID venture is based on WebSphere Business Integration, running on WebSphere Application Server, DB2 Information Integrator, Tivoli Access Manager, and WebSphere Portal Server. IBM is working with Kimberly-Clark throughout the development of the RFID project, called AutoID. According to company officials at K-C, IBM is providing the consulting and implementation services, specialized software, and is helping K-C to develop an assessment of specific costs and benefits. Part of this work includes integrating a key K-C customer and an analysis of how AutoID impacts customers and, ultimately, the consumer. The project is taking a phased approach to RFID. Phase one includes consulting and development of the business case for RFID. Phase two is a 12-week pilot. In phase three, IBM provides the full roll-out of the system. IBM's RFID proponents say the retail industry could cut theft as well as reduce inventory levels by 25 percent, saving billions of dollars annually by tagging products and using computers to automatically trace those products from the warehouse through shipping and to store shelves.
  
  

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