MICROSOFT FLEXES GLOBAL ALLIANCES TO DELIVER NEW SERVER LINE FOR SMALL AND MIDSIZE BUSINESSES

Innovation that drives cost efficiency and help SMBs succeed in the world market.

Kuala Lumpur, December 18, 2008 - Microsoft Malaysia today announced the general availability of Windows Small Business Server 2008 (SBS 2008) and Windows Essential Business Server 2008 (EBS 2008). The launch is part of Microsoft Corporation’s USD 6.5 billion annual investment in products, support programs and incentives for small and midsize businesses (SMBs).

These solutions bring the power of Microsoft’s enterprise-class server technologies to SMBs in a way that these companies can best utilize them. Large businesses traditionally will have the budgets to equip themselves with a roster of specialists with the technical knowledge to manage IT environments – a luxury that SMBs can rarely afford. The SBS and EBS products are designed and priced to help customers reduce expenditures and be more competitive on the global stage.

“Globally, SMBs are the engines for economic growth and opportunity. Our SMBs, likening their larger counterparts, are facing tough challenges brought forth by the widespread uncertainty in the world market,” said Ramesh Rajandran, Product Marketing Manager, Infrastructure Servers, Microsoft Malaysia. “Our mantra is to support businesses succeed during these unpredictable economic climate. Microsoft is focused on delivering integrated and affordable server solutions, configured for optimization, to meet the needs of companies with scarce IT resources. Our SBS 2008 and EBS 2008 offer a comprehensive set of capabilities that will fuel the growth of SMBs.”

Partner Ecosystem
Microsoft leveraged on its more than 400,000 partners worldwide – 20,000 of which are small-business specialists – and provided them with other resources to assist small and midsize businesses successfully implement and use these solutions.

Vincent Lee, Country Business Manager, Industry Standard Servers, Technology Solutions Group, HP Malaysia, said, “HP is proud to be one of the key technology enablers of Microsoft to provide SMBs with optimized hardware configurations. Together we will ensure superior customer satisfaction when installing, running and maintaining the SBS 2008 and EBS 2008.”

Microsoft’s partners like HP, Dell and IBM are offering a broad choice of solutions for the new server line. In addition, HP, IBM and Intel Corporation have also designed and priced blade servers specifically for midsize customers. Combined with EBS 2008, these blade servers will give customers an affordable and scalable infrastructure solution that is quick to set up and easy to maintain.

Lee continued, “SMB customers are constantly searching for ways to stay at the technology forefront without having to make hefty IT investments. Being able to share our insights with Microsoft in the development of their new server solutions was an excellent opportunity for us to adequately address the needs of SMBs.”

“We are fortunate to be working with a very good mix of partners who contributed their inputs using our various feedback channels during the development of these products. The inputs of our partners are evident throughout these new solutions. Our deployment partners have direct regular access to their SMB customers and they use these relationships to build customized solutions to cater to the needs of their customers,” Rajandran added.

Many independent software vendors (ISVs) are also supporting SBS 2008 and EBS 2008, across a wide variety of applications such as backup and recovery, security, business management, systems management, line-of-business applications, and more. In addition, SBS 2008 and EBS 2008 will run virtually any applications certified on Windows Server 2008.

Product Details
Designed for companies with up to 75 users or PCs, SBS 2008 is an integrated server solution created to help businesses keep their data more secure and make their company more productive. SBS provides many of the technologies used by larger companies, such as Windows Server 2008, Exchange Server 2007, Microsoft SQL Server 2008 and other Microsoft products. EBS 2008 is designed for businesses with up to 300 users or PCs, and allows IT managers to have more control over their environment by reducing complexity and automating common tasks. With support for Windows Mobile phones, SBS 2008 and EBS 2008 can significantly help boost productivity with access to business e-mail, calendar, contacts and files when away from the office.

For more information about these new Microsoft solutions, and a whole range of other products, including detailed feature lists, please visit, http://www.secureandreliable.com.my/Home.aspx.