Bonum Certa Men Certa

Microsoft Kills Windows Essential Business Server Due to Low Demand

Long live GNU/Linux!

Download Feature Pack 1 for Windows Essential Business Server 2008



Summary: Another Microsoft product bites the dust (leaving room for GNU/Linux) and Microsoft resorts to hype offensives

Add Windows Essential Business Server to the list of dead products from Microsoft. There is no sufficient demand for it, so Microsoft is killing it.

Microsoft launched EBS in November 2008 in part to give VARs a product to sell to customers whose needs exceeded the 75-user limit of Small Business Server, and potentially attract new midmarket customers. With support for up to 300 users, EBS filled a gap that had existed in Microsoft's SMB product portfolio, but EBS apparently wasn't seeing a satisfactory level of uptake.


Scott Fulton explains why people predicted this correctly.

It was a solid idea. But today it was left to EBS' own product managers to announce on their team blog this morning that Microsoft has made a decision to cancel the product. The excuse they gave was especially disheartening, as it essentially caved in to the arguments naysayers used against EBS' viability from the beginning.


The truth is simple:

Microsoft will discontinue future development of Windows Essential Business Server (EBS), effective June 30th, 2010.


Microsoft has a way of spinning it:

Microsoft will halt development of its mid-market oriented Windows Essential Business Server software bundle, as the company bets on "cloud computing" rather than lump licensing to woo penny-pinching IT markets.


When asked some further questions (outside the 'spin zone'), Microsoft's response was this:

Microsoft officials declined to comment further.


They would not speak to the press, not even IDG News Service. Since the early days of Microsoft, they have had this silence policy imposed at the behest of the PR people (source: Barbarians Led by Bill Gates, a book composed by the daughter of Microsoft's PR mogul). In any event, here is some more coverage of it [1, 2] and more spin from Ina the booster, Mary Jo Foley, the 'Microsoft press' which covered it too gently, and Microsoft Nick with his weak, one-sided 'reporting' at eWEEK (it should be called "eWEAK"). They mostly play along with Microsoft's PR message, which spins this failure as an evolving strategy. They should challenge Microsoft's spin, not simply parrot it, which would make them participants in the PR machinery.

There was another article a few days ago about more products that Microsoft discontinues.

Microsoft announced two dates recently that Windows users should heed.

On April 13, Microsoft will no longer support Windows Vista that has no service packs installed.

Second and more importantly, on July 13, support will end for all versions of Windows 2000 and all version of Windows XP with Service Pack 1 and Service Pack 2.

End of support means that Microsoft will no longer give phone and e-mail technical support and will no longer fix bugs and issue security patches.


Microsoft has some real problems these days, also financially [1, 2, 3, 4] (real numbers carry on declining). This past week, not a single headline about Vista appeared in the news, just some marketing lies for Vista 7 (fake figures of "sales", just like Microsoft did for Vista, courtesy of Microsoft's PR efforts). It's a simple case of fake numbers and misclassification for hype (unused licences and XP counting as "sales" of Vista 7), but Microsoft is trying to create the false impression that many people already accept the newer version of the same old operating system. There is also the "R&D" lie from Microsoft [1, 2, 3, 4], where the company basically categorises too many activities as "R&D" and then sells this illusion that it advances science. In any event, Microsoft (MSFT) suffered a decline last week because it admitted that its financial results wouldn't quite meet expectations, not even in the next quarter.

U.S. stocks pared gains and the Dow Jones Industrial Average retreated as Microsoft Corp. slid after predicting higher operating expenses, triggering a decline in technology companies. Intel Corp. lost 1.3 percent.


In order to reduce those expenses, Microsoft has been killing many products and even divisions that were losing money. Microsoft is still shrinking and it only ever expands in countries where labour is inexpensive and working conditions utterly poor.

"If you can’t make it good, at least make it look good."

--Bill Gates, Microsoft



Comments

Recent Techrights' Posts

Linux and the Freedom Paradox
Linux is losing freedom if some external actors who only use Microsoft tools for development wrest control
Watch the FSF Party Live (via Livestream)
It's in WebM format, which is widely supported by now
Advocacy of Software Freedom Changed, LUGs Became Less Relevant
The way we see it, support groups like LUGs sort of outlived their usefulness when it became easier to install GNU/Linux
For the Second Time in a Few Weeks Microsoft Lunduke Makes False Accusations Against Senior Red Hat Staff to Incite a Despicable 'Troll Army'
Nothing that Microsoft Lunduke claims or says can be trusted
Compromised by NVIDIA Proprietary Library
Meanwhile in Boston there are "[r]oundtable talk with FSF volunteers (both in-person and online)"
How Software Patents Were Viewed or Their General Status Changed Over Time
A rough summary
 
The Free Software Foundation's Livestream Has Ended, Video/s Might be Online Next
I've asked whether they'll upload video of some of the event; I still wait for an answer
The Register MS Does Not Know the Difference Between Microsoft GitHub and GitLab
At the time of writing (October 5) the article from "Thu 2 Oct 2025" remains uncorrected
"Bullshit Generators" (What RMS Calls LLMs) and Fake Images Already Target the FSF
Why does Google News promote fake articles about the FSF while omitting all the real ones?
Software Patents as a Bubble
Don't invest resources in hype; if you detect a bubble, run away from it
Links 05/10/2025: Political Leftovers, Climate Change, and Security Incidents
Links for the day
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Saturday, October 04, 2025
IRC logs for Saturday, October 04, 2025
When Microsoft "Integrates" Something With "AI" It Means It's Losing Money and Is Generally Hopeless
how did Bing fare after 36 months of LLM slop being hyped up as "replacement" for search?
Most Certificates Don't Improve Security, They Mostly Increase Downtime (for No Good Reason)
The 'Gemini sites' (capsules) are a growing force
The statCounter Site Has Data Integrity Problems
Maybe we'll get back to statCounter when its data becomes more "stable" again
10 Ways to Combat Software Patents
software patents are loathed also by proprietary software developers
"Just a Little Bit of Meat..."
Free software "absolutism" is not a radical stance, more so if the only "radical" belief the user possesses is that he or she must be in control of his or her software, and by extension his or her computer
Red Hat is Ignoring the Free Software Community, It's a "Fortune 1000" Vendor
Red Hat's blog also participates a lot in promoting of Wall Street's latest pump-and-dump "AI" scheme
Free Software Foundation Party Has Begun
We shall be focusing a lot on software patents today
Former Head of the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) Lina Khan Knows Whatever Microsoft Touches Will Die
Just like Skype (as recently as months ago) [...] When Microsoft grabs things, or when it buys things, it almost never ends well
Slopwatch: Fake Articles About LibreOffice in Austria and Wine 10.16
very short
Links 04/10/2025: "attempted Coup" Noted in Facebook, Russia Kills Journalists via Drones
Links for the day
Gemini Links 04/10/2025: Anesthesia and Baudpunk
Links for the day
Links 04/10/2025: "Privacy Harm Is Harm", Criticism Outlawed in US
Links for the day
Garmin Uses Linux for Some of the Garmin Products, Now It's Sued by Strava Using Software Patents
Software patents should never have been granted in the first place
Richard Stallman Will Give a Talk in Sweden in 6 Days
Dr. Stallman, despite his battle with cancer is still alive and mentally sharp
FSF Turns 40
We'll be focusing on patent-related topics this weekend
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Friday, October 03, 2025
IRC logs for Friday, October 03, 2025
Gemini Links 04/10/2025: Distro Hopping and "Part Time"
Links for the day
We Are Turning 19 in One Month, FSF Turns 40 in 3 Hours (CET)
For our anniversary next month we still have no concrete plans
Patent Docs (or PatentDocs) Learned the Wrong Lessons From the Death of TypePad
Had they gone ahead with an SSG, they'd become a lot more future-proof
USPTO Patent Bubble Already Imploding, After Decades of Artificial Inflation, Entire Offices Close for Good
we can deduce that financial pressures (lack of "demand" for monopolies) play a role
TikTok is Not Harmless (Being CheeTok in the US Will Advance Orange Agenda)
Social control media isn't "fun and games"; it's a digital weapon that lets hostile groups or nations infiltrate others, then turn them against themselves
Andy Farnell and Helen Plews Explain What "Modern" Tech Does to Old People
Imposing terrible tech "religion" on people is not helping them
Tomorrow the Free Software Foundation (FSF) Turns 40 and Its Web Site is Still Slow Due to DDoS by LLM Slop Bots
For an advocacy group, uptime is important (for its message to remain accessible)
Slopwatch: Google News as a Firehose of LLM Slop About "Linux"
Google News is really bad
Datamation, Where I Used to Publish Articles, Appears to Have Been Sold to TechnologyAdvice Only to Become a Slopfarm
I'd prefer to not associate with that site anymore
Links 03/10/2025: "NPR’s Economics Lessons Come With Neoliberal Spin" and Canada Post at Risk
Links for the day
Gemini Links 03/10/2025: Panic Attacks and Food Adulteration
Links for the day
Links 03/10/2025: Lawyers Caught Using LLM Slop Explain Why They Did It, LibreSSL 4.1.1 and 4.0.1 Released
Links for the day
FSF Board Grew 50% Since Last Year, Has New President, Turns 40 in Two Days
It's a good move for the FSF and - by extension - for software freedom
Links 03/10/2025: Conflicts, Death of TypePad, and TikTok/CheeTok Gives a Boost to Far Right Groups in Europe
Links for the day
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Thursday, October 02, 2025
IRC logs for Thursday, October 02, 2025
Slopwatch: Linux Journal, Google News, and LinuxSecurity
They carry on polluting the Web with fake articles
Gemini Links 02/10/2025: Kubernetes With FreeBSD and robots.txt
Links for the day