In-Depth

Windows Server 2003 ships

• By Jack Vaughan
• May 1, 2003

Late last month, Microsoft Corp. formally released Windows Server 2003. At one time this server bore the .NET moniker but, despite a large effort to build the .NET brand image, Microsoft decided, in the end, to stick with Windows as the flagship brand. The new server was released along with Visual Studio .NET 2003 and a 64-bit edition of SQL Server 2000.

Microsoft describes the new server as its best-performing server OS to date. Pinned on it are the company’s hopes to field a stellar platform for integrating applications. Developers can use one programming model, but more than 20 languages, to create apps that run on the server. As in the past, Microsoft’s app server comes with the OS.

In the days before the rollout, Microsoft’s Richard Burte, product manager, .NET Framework, said that the goal of the release is to provide a distributed application infrastructure through Windows, transaction processing and messaging.

Higher scalability is in store because the company has worked on OS kernel improvements in the realm of memory management, he indicated. General work on Data Center versions of Windows is paying off in this new release, he added.

Burte reflected on some competitor actions, specifically Sun’s recent moves to greater bundling of its app server and OS. He chided: “It is a great example of where they’ve come around to the thinking that the OS and the app server should be integrated.

“Our goal is to bring software technology to the broadest part of the market,” he added. “We think transaction processing and other core enterprise styles of functionality should be broadly available. .NET makes it easier for developers to take advantage of those things.”

See the related stories “J2EE and .NET servers weigh in” and “Java environment focuses on up-front modeling”, or click here to read an ADT Briefing Book on the latest releases from Microsoft.