Benefits and Prospects

Michael analyzed and wrote about Microsoft's operating systems, including the Windows client OS, as well as compliance and governance. Michael... more

With Windows Server 2003 and Windows XP, Microsoft has delivered on the initial PC management promise it made with Windows 2000-administrators can manage a PC throughout its life cycle including installing the operating system, installing applications, centrally configuring the PC and its software, locking PCs down, supporting roaming users, restoring failed PCs, and migrating existing configurations to new PCs.

Most important, Windows Server 2003 has reduced the upfront investment required for management. While deploying Active Directory (AD) is still complex, the process is more forgiving of both technological and political issues. Group Policy (GP) tools enable the administrator to understand the impact of a policy, both in terms of what it will do, and to whom it will apply, reducing the chance for costly errors. Combined with the improvements to IntelliMirror and application installation delivered with Windows XP clients, Windows Server now provides a much more complete PC management solution.

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Updated: July 9, 2020 (December 2, 2002)

Analyst Report Archived

Benefits and Prospects

IT planners, architects, and developers making application server decisions should realize that Windows Server 2003 is a credible entry in the application server market. It competes well on the core features across each of the three tiers:

Hosting components. Windows Server 2003 supports component-based programming and provides services such as message queuing and object pooling, which are important functions for the middle tier of an application server platform.

Connecting to data. Windows Server 2003 has built-in support for distributed transactions, and ADO.NET provides access to a variety of back-end DBMSs. The use of XML in the data-access layer also bodes well for Microsoft’s ability to integrate Web services technologies as XML evolves and becomes more important.

Supporting the UI. Microsoft’s thin-client offering, ASP.NET, is already well received and is being adopted by a variety of customers, chiefly for its significant ease-of-development advantages over its predecessor, ASP. In addition, Windows Forms is a marked improvement over Microsoft’s previous thick-client controls and APIs, in both ease of use and functionality.

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