Microsoft announces today that Windows Small Business Server 2011 Essentials is now available through all channels. This means that customers can purchase a copy of the server through Volume Licensing, at retail, and from most of its hardware maker partners, with more offers and partner products coming over the next few months.
Here's some info on the release from Microsoft's STB blog:
People will love Essentials' ability to interact with applications in the cloud. Last week we disclosed how Essentials works together with Office 365, but there are many more partners that are working to integrate their cloud offerings with SBS Essentials. Partners like Trend Micro’s Global Product Marketing Manager Greg Boyle, who says “we are excited to be one of the first SaaS providers to enable seamless integration between Microsoft Windows Small Business Server 2011 Essentials and a hosted service. With Trend Micro Worry-Free Business Security Services SBS 2011 Essentials users can protect all their Windows based desktops, laptops and servers. The integration with the SBS dashboard allows users to maintain central control of security settings and reporting from the server but offload the security server maintenance to the cloud. This gives them more time to focus on productive & profitable tasks and frees up the server so it can perform at its peak.”
Many more solutions for cloud back up, hosted email integration, online productivity are already on the market or will be available soon.
Next week we will continue celebrating SBS Essentials general availability with our partners at Microsoft’s Worldwide Partner Conference. If you are there, please visit our or our partners’ booths to see the product first hand, and, if you are not at WPC, keep on following us on this blog and on our Facebookand twitter pages to receive SBS Essentials news firsthand.
Finally, we would like to thank all the people involved into every phase of this project and in particular the partners, customers without whose collaboration all this would not have been possible and remind you that this is just the beginning of a long, successful journey.
More info: The Acer AC100 small business server is coming soon.