Commerce Server 2002 Gets Feature Pack

by Timothy Prickett Morgan

Microsoft this week rolled out Feature Pack 1 for Commerce Server 2002, one of the core components of the Windows Server System. Commerce Server is the latest iteration of a long line of Web server and e-commerce management programs that Microsoft has been selling since the mid-1990s to run on its Windows NT 4.0 platform. It is essentially an online store, and with Feature Pack 1 Microsoft is making changes to make it easier to use.

Commerce Server 2002 is arguably the third decent release of Microsoft's storefront software. The original Site Server 3.0 was not as sophisticated as Commerce Server 4.0, which came out in 1999. In late 2000, Commerce Server 2000 shipped ahead of BizTalk Server 2000 and Windows Server 2000, which shipped early in 2001. Commerce Server 2000 was all about B2B exchanges, which have been kind of a dud in the market, while Commerce Server 2002 added features to serve wireless pages and to make use of the .NET features that were only just starting to be used by coders in the spring of 2002, when it was announced.

Commerce Server 2002's Feature Pack 1 is the result of feedback from customers, who wanted new and faster user interfaces for managing the content in catalogs and the discounting interfaces in that catalog. The software also includes a new staging function that lets programmers make changes to the online store and not have to take those changes online to see how they look. This staging function is enabled through another server program, Microsoft's Application Center Server. The online catalogs built by Commerce Server 2002 can now have online promotion codes, special offers, and limited-time discounts--common features on online stores these days. The software also allows programmers to control the display order of items in the online catalog based on product attributes, which helps stores highlight particular products or stress sales on old inventory they want to get rid of.

Last year, under a project code-named Jupiter, Microsoft was planning to integrate BizTalk Server, Content Manager Server, and Commerce Server into a single bundle, presumably with a lower price. But when BizTalk Server 2004 was released to manufacturing, in March, Microsoft killed off Jupiter. Commerce Server 2002 remains a stand-alone product, but in the future Microsoft will be tightening the integration between BizTalk Server and Content Management Server just the same.

Microsoft is now saying that the future version of Commerce Server, due in early 2006, will use BizTalk and Visual Studio.NET to tightly integrate front-end e-commerce sites with back-end CRM and ERP software suites running on Windows and non-Windows platforms (provided they talk .NET, of course). This future Commerce Server, which may be called Commerce Server 2006, will also take the new user interfaces that debuted in the catalog management interface and move them into the marketing and order management interfaces of the program. Microsoft also plans to add more reporting and analytics to the software (which helps vendors figure out what sells and why it sells) as well as customer self-service features, like checking order status, inventory levels, or account information.

Feature Pack 1 for Commerce Server 2002 is available now for free as a download to customers at microsoft.com/commerceserver, and Microsoft says that it will also make available a software development kit for partners that use Commerce Server 2002 as the basis of their own products and services. A 120-day evaluation version of Commerce Server 2002 is available for free. Commerce Server 2002 Developer Edition costs $499 per seat, while Standard Edition (for modest-sized sites) costs $6,999. Commerce Server 2002 Enterprise Edition (for hosting very big stores) costs $19,999 per server processor it runs on.