The next release of SBS will include Office Web Apps.
We’ve always liked Microsoft’s Small Business Server – a relatively cheap way to get centralized email, document storage and sharing. You get the considerable power of Exchange Server and Sharepoint in an easy to configure system.
Office Watch has used Small Business Server for years and these days it’s even more flexible if you install it in a virtual machine, probably Hyper/V. This makes it easier to move to other hardware.
Small Business Server (SBS) version 7 is now out for testing and looks very interesting to us Microsoft Office users for a few reasons:
- Office Web Applications will be included. This means staff will be able to edit document stored on the organization server in their browser. It could save on Office software costs for staff who don’t need full fledged Office software – just occasional editing and viewing of documents.
- Exchange Server 2010 is included. That centralizes email, calendar, contacts etc which can be viewed not only in Outlook but also in a browser and links to most devices including iPhones and Android.
There’s also a new ‘first server’ offering code named ‘Aurora’ . This doesn’t have email, Sharepoint 2010 or Office Web Apps but does let you centralize document storage and backups. Microsoft also has vague talk about ‘extending’ this package with yet unspecified cloud offerings and an ‘upcoming community of add-ins’. It’ll be interesting to see what will be added to ‘Aurora’ and the cost.
Some details of Small Business Server 7 and ‘Aurora’ are here as well as a link to the beta test of SBS 7.
