Microsoft targets small businesses with Windows Server Foundation

15 user CALs are included, meaning you are allowed to hook up 15 users to that shiny new server. But you still need to buy Terminal Server CALs, Rights Management CALs (CALs for DRM? What a sick joke!), SharePoint CALs, Exchange CALs, SQL CALs, etc. or the cops will come after you.

With a Linux server you have all those services without any of the CALs, even if you are still using Windows clients.

@ SB, dude you need to read. It is only for a maximum of 15 people. You can't move it to an other computer or even replace defective hardware. What has micorshaft ever producted that didn't require an IT staff or plenty of money on the help line. Is you name steve? Linux is by far the very best choice for a small business. Ubuntu or BEL server-basic which I have running flawlessly for about 2 years and before that just a plain linux distro. The business just loves it. No weekly rebooting to get resources back. No virus program to keep updating and feeding money to for all the WINDOWS OPERATING SYSTEM VIRUSES on the internet that has ruined the internet and cost people billions of dollars in idenity theift and business billions of dollars in lost productivity.

Dude, read! It is meant for business with around 15 employees and "no IT staff".

So rather than the comfort of windows interface, you want such a business to download Ubuntu Server and setup LAMP on it, all the time hacking on the command prompt with vi or nano?

The new Ubuntu server edition sounds like a *better* way to go to me than being locked into MSoft's draconian licensing restrictions. Oh, and that way you actually KNOW what code your precious business is running on, and that this code is not vulnerable to Windows conficker worms and such. However, you really never know what a Window box is doing...

Oh, and Ubuntu is free (however,their reasonably-priced support is extra, as it should be for this excellent product). I would not personally trust the success of my business to Microsoft. The internet runs on Linux for a reason.

@ Swollen Gland

You really are one!
Most of those photos are taken from the 70's with the original team.

"..and every one of them is 'geek'" - Wowie - they're software engineers, being a 'geek' comes with the territory, tell us something new.

put microsoft team into google images and then try to take them seriously.

a picture paints a thousand words
..and every one of them is 'geek'

And they probably will kill their sales the same way they did with the Server 2003 Web Edition's EULA - you can have it cheap but you're not allowed to run anything that has no M$ label on it.

Thanks, but no thanks...