Microsoft branding: 8 Versions Of Windows Server 2008

Guest Blogger: Steven Parker
12th Nov, New York

Steve Jobs recently said at the launch of Leopard OSX, "And everyone gets the 'Ultimate' version", just to take a swing at the different versions of Vista. If that was not enough, Microsoft is prepared to give the world many more versions of its server operating system. Actually, when Windows Server 2008 will be released it'll come in 8 different flavors!!

Microsoft has figured it out that marketing different versions of the same thing is profitable. They understand that packaging stuff with different set of features makes people want more. Microsoft seems to understand that the entire culture of marketing now-a-days is about tempting the customer to buy the bigger box, more that what he actually requires!! ;-)

Windows Server 2008 is special because of its thin-hypervisor called Hyper-V, which enables virtualization out of the box! Windows Server 2008 will come in Standard, Enterprise and Datacenter versions with and without the Hyper-V. And each of these would come in 64-bit and 32-bit versions. CALs (Client-Access License) means the number of clients that are allowed to access the server.

Version	Price	CALs
Standard (with Hyper-V)	$999	5
Standard (without Hyper-V)	$971	5
Enterprise (with Hyper-V)	$3999	25
Enterprise (without Hyper-V)	$3971	25
Datacenter (with Hyper-V)	$2999	per processor
Datacenter (without Hyper-V)	$2971	per processor
Web Server 2008 (without Hyper-V)	$469
Server 2008 for Itanuim (without Hyper-V)	$2999	per processor

The funny part of it is that "When Windows Server 2008 ships next February, those versions that have Hyper-V will include the beta bits for that, and those will be updated to the final version when that ships within 180 days". This means that you'll may for a beta product initially. When Microsoft releases the final product, which will be a standalone, you get the final as well...

Let's see how it all looks when Microsoft will release the product in all its glory in Feb 2008. I have heard good things about it from Sunny, who's been beta testing the Home Server and Server 2008 from it's early days. I seriously expected Vista to come with 32-bit and 64-bit versions on the same DVD, but that was not the case. Hope they have that for Windows Server atleast!