Microsoft resellers were reeling from this week's announcement that the vendor was stopping production of its Essential Business Server (EBS) in June this year, less than 16 months since its official launch.
"I think everybody was surprised. It was just dropped like a bombshell," said Henry Craven, principal of CI Information Technology and a Microsoft Small Business Server (SBS) Most Valuable Professional.
"There was no hint that this was going to happen whatsoever. As far as I know nothing has been said as to why," he said.
The announcement - made in a posting on the Windows Essential Business Server Team Blog - gave just one reason for "streamlining" the server product portfolio.
Microsoft said that midsize businesses were turning to virtualisation and cloud computing to cut costs and improve efficiency. The vendor said these technologies were available through Windows Server 2008 R2, Microsoft System Centre and the Microsoft Business Productivity Online Suite (BPOS).
Inquiries to Microsoft Australia about Essential Business Server were directed towards the blog post.
The decision to dump Essential Business Server leaves a big gap in Microsoft's roadmap. Small Business Server has been very successful as it gave small companies an integrated collection of Microsoft technologies at a bundled price. However, the bundle is restricted to a maximum of 75 users. Companies which added a 76th employee were obvious customers for Enterprise Business Server, which runs from 76-300 users, said Wayne Small, founder of Correct Solutions.
"Small business don't have any growth path. Right now today there is no way to get out of Small Business Server, which is a real problem when you have customers that need to grow out of it, like we do," said Small.
Small and CI Information Technology's Craven had just paid to fly to Microsoft's Redmond headquarters to train themselves and staff in the Essential Business Server and Small Business Server platforms.
Small, who said he had been working with the development of Essential Business Server for five years, had invested heavily in the platform.
"I was a foul person to be around when I found about it. I don't understand why Microsoft have done this. They haven't really said anything clear, they've just mumbled about change of direction," said Small, who also runs the Sydney Small Business Server user group and website SBSfaq.com. "I and my business partner are quite rightly pissed at Microsoft."
Small had just convinced one of his biggest customers to sign up for the Essential Business Server program and was supposed to roll out the beta in two weeks.
Correct Solutions has already notched up four sales of Essential Business Server and has four "close to closing", said Small. One rollout happened last Friday, just as news of the platform's demise broke.
"That particular customer is a hardware-as-a-service customer so he won't be wearing the cost, we will be. But we still went ahead and rolled it out anyway," said Small.
Next page: Resellers count their lost sales
Issue: 281 | July