Web Edition Joins Windows Server 2003 Family

Windows Server 2003, available in Apr. 2003, will add a new low-cost Web Edition licensed exclusively for use as a Web server to the traditional Standard, Enterprise (Advanced), and Datacenter Editions. Organizations and service providers will find that Web Edition is the least expensive way to deploy sites built on Microsoft technologies such as Internet Information Server (IIS) and ASP.NET, but the product contains no server or deployment features that are not part of other Windows server editions.

With its low cost, Web Edition also seems designed to provide a relatively inexpensive alternative to open-source Web server technologies, sometimes referred to as LAMP (Linux, Apache, MySQL, and PHP).

Competitive Price, Restricted Usage

Web Edition is primarily designed as a low-cost alternative for all organizations, regardless of their size, that host their own sites, or for service providers that need to deploy many Web servers. Microsoft is promoting Web Edition as particularly well suited for organizations that want to host ASP.NET applications, and more specifically as the user interface tier of n-tier applications built with Microsoft technology. (See the illustration “Web Edition as Application Front End“.)