Microsoft unveils new small business server at WWPC

Monday, July 19, 2010

At the recent World Wide Partner Conference, Microsoft unveiled a new server intended for small business use.

The new server, Aurora, has tailored itself toward small businesses based upon previous feedback. Since many businesses already had similar solutions in place before adopting the server, Aurora has eliminated Exchange and SharePoint from its repertoire of SaaS applications. Aurora, which is limited to businesses with 25 employees or less, provides these organizations with storage space and print services and includes the company's federated identity management service as well - the first time a SBS has had this option.

Aurora's release comes in contrast to the also recently released SBS 7, which does include the aforementioned SaaS applications. A blogger for CTO Edge believes Aurora will provide companies "struggling with the problem of managing servers and cloud computing access with little or no IT staff" with a viable option.

Having a reliable, safe cloud option for small- and medium-sized businesses to store data remains an important key, as Hewlett-Packard recently found 70 percent of SMBs experiencing data loss go out of business within one year of such loss.