Comments on: PC PRO – SMB Feature – What happened?

By: Jules Wilkinson

Jules Wilkinson — Wed, 22 Jul 2009 08:12:29 +0000

Heya there Jon…
“it is rare for me to come across SBS” –
That’s a bit scary… And the fact that you put seperate role boxes in to that market – I presume then they must have 3 / 4 x the budget of a regular business that size?

I did find it odd that Small Business Server never even got a mention, where several other products were named…

And also – Virtualisation – Again I gather that the budgets of your clients must be far in excess… And if you are against relying on too many eggs in one basket… I presume then that those clients have two servers running the host??

I know it is one in a series… But I am not sure who the target audience is mean’t to be. I think it may have been baffling to the business owner who just wants to have it work and see the benefits of embracing and investing in their IT (and treading very near to having a bit of knowledge is a dangerous thing), and if addressed at the techie, then it’s put a few noses out of joint / risking their wrath…

I guess I just feel it lacks a bit of balance…

But hey, I totally agree (for me) that the SMB space is not in The Cloud…

By: AndyParkes

AndyParkes — Tue, 21 Jul 2009 14:02:16 +0000

Thanks for joining in the conversation

I look forward to the rest of the series

By: jon honeyball

jon honeyball — Tue, 21 Jul 2009 13:55:52 +0000

As i said , it was an introductory piece to a series of follow on articles, each of which will be covering a specific area in more detail. I’m sorry it didnt cover all bases, but that wasnt the scope

By: AndyParkes

AndyParkes — Tue, 21 Jul 2009 13:40:59 +0000

I 100% agree that SBS isn’t the be-all and end-all solution. But it is a perfectly viable solution

We use Windows Server in our solutions too depending on the clients budget and needs

If you’re taking SBS out of clients that’s your call. But shouldn’t your article be impartial and at least mention other solutions?

“way too many chickens in the one hardware basket”
You can add as many servers as you like?
Who said anything about being restricted to one server. SBS Premium is a two server solution out of the box. Or you could always go with EBS!

However, how many servers do you suggest a 5 seat business should be using? Especially when cost is going to be a driving force in choosing the solution

By: jon honeyball

jon honeyball — Tue, 21 Jul 2009 12:42:27 +0000

But SBS is not the be-all and end-all in the small business sector — a large number of people, myself included, think that it is way too many chickens in the one hardware basket, and when I go look at the 5-50 seat SME space, it is rare for me to come across SBS. Maybe thats just a wierd thing, but we take clients off sbs, not onto it.

By: AndyParkes

AndyParkes — Tue, 21 Jul 2009 12:34:56 +0000

Jon, I think you’re missing my point

I understand there is a limited amount of space per article and I wouldn’t expect a full analysis of every single available product in what is the first of a “long term guide”

I just can’t understand that the article can talk at length about things like Exchange server, even talking about why you might choose 2003 instead of 2007 yet didn’t even mention the name “Small Business Server”

That’s without looking at the other points I mentioned in the post

By: jon honeyball

jon honeyball — Tue, 21 Jul 2009 09:55:42 +0000

there is a whole decision process between buying sbs versus conventional server (and now the other offerings). space space space and more space required…. hopefully this is coming later on. I was trying to do a “dip the toe” into a huge range of issues — this either works in the space or it doesnt and unforch there will always be people who want more from the piece (and rightly so).

By: AndyParkes

AndyParkes — Tue, 21 Jul 2009 09:46:06 +0000

Hi Jon

Thanks for the comment

I appreciate there are editorial limits and I did mention in my post that this is the first part of series so I understand it’s not a give-all-answer piece

My main disappointment was that a piece that talks about Microsoft technology for small business makes no mention of their small business offerings

By: jon honeyball

jon honeyball — Tue, 21 Jul 2009 09:44:04 +0000

(jeez, cant even spell my name or url properly today!)

regarding the 16Gb limit — sorry, thats my old age kicking in — I meant to write 75Gig for all the reasons you say!

jon

By: jon honeybal

jon honeybal — Tue, 21 Jul 2009 09:40:31 +0000

hi there

thanks for the comments

trying to get 100k words of content into 2k is not easy, and the editorial team had clear ideas of how they wanted to kick off the series. It was intended as an opening piece on a series of pieces to come in subsequent months, each of which drills into specific issues.

It wasnt intended as a standalone give-all-answers piece.

jon
jon@jonhoneybal.com
@jonhoneyball twitter