Microsoft Touts Server Bundles For SMBs

A flurry of new product promotions and bundles reflects Microsoft's strategy to make it easier for partners to sell solutions into the SMB market.

A new midmarket server bundle and joint solution with Citrix Systems demonstrate a willingness on the software vendor's part to tinker with its bundling, pricing and licensing practices to make them more palatable to partners and the SMB market. The launch of the Windows Server System promotion for midsize businesses, and Citrix Access Essentials (see related story), both of which were heavily touted at the Microsoft Worldwide Partner Conference in Minneapolis last week, are designed to make it easier for partners to sell Microsoft server technologies as single solutions to SMB customers.

The midmarket offering includes three copies of Windows Server 2003 Standard Edition, one Exchange 2003 Standard Edition, one Microsoft Operations Manager 2005 Workgroup Edition and 50 Client Access Licenses (CALs) to Windows and Exchange, all at a 20 percent discount. The products do not offer a common console or install like Microsoft's Small Business Server, yet Microsoft provides guidance that offers best practices for deployment.

"The challenge we've seen is that to sell the whole Microsoft story into this customer set, the partner has to sell them five to eight different products," said Steven VanRoekel, director of midmarket solutions in the Windows Server Group at Microsoft, Redmond, Wash. "This gives partners a single SKU, something to wrap their arms around."

Meanwhile, Microsoft's joint solution with Fort Lauderdale, Fla.-based Citrix bundles Microsoft's Terminal Services CALs in the base cost of the product for the first time, and offers a named user licensing scheme preferred by smaller customers.

Solution providers said these offerings make it easier for them to serve up Microsoft SMB solutions at lower cost and complexity. "I ran into a situation not too long ago where a customer really wanted a complete Microsoft solution stack, but it was cost-prohibitive for them," said Ken Winell, CEO of Vis.align subsidiary Econium. "We worked out a deal but still had to really push things to close. The midmarket server should make it easier."

The company is also pitching soon-to-be-launched SMB products including Microsoft Office Small Business Accounting 2006 at less than $200, and a new Small Business Edition of its next version of Microsoft CRM, CRM 3.0, optimized to run with Microsoft Small Business Server 2003.