Microsoft Releases Commerce Server 2000

The release of Commerce Server 2000, Microsoft’s latest solution for e-commerce, completes the dissection of Site Server Commerce Edition into bCentral, BizTalk Server, and Commerce Server. Commerce Server 2000 allows companies of all sizes to create both business-to-business (B2B) and business-to-consumer (B2C) e-commerce sites. Having addressed the serious installation, configuration, and management problems that plagued its earlier efforts, Microsoft hopes customers will see Commerce Server 2000 as a strong candidate to be their primary e-commerce tool.

Successful e-commerce is not easy, as indicated by recent “dot.com” failures, such as Pets.com, and the struggles of “bricks and mortar” retailers to create a viable presence on the Internet. While everyone would like to be as successful as Dell.com, building a profitable e-commerce presence presents at least two key challenges: managing the site and managing the business.

Managing the Site

Building an e-commerce site requires substantial integration of hardware and software. A Commerce Server 2000 site is built on top of Windows 2000 Server and makes extensive use of both the Internet Information Server (IIS) included in Windows 2000 and SQL Server.