Origins of Small Business Server and its History
The idea for Small Business Server 4.0 was conceived in
August 1995.
Over the next two years, while Small Business Server 4.0
was being developed, several major developments had taken place in the PC
industry that would dramatically impact Small Business Server.
The pace of industry change accelerated even more
following the release of Small Business Server 4.0 and there’s no sign
of any slowdown in pace of innovation and price/performance improvements
for small business networks.
Small Business Server and its History Shaped by Explosive Growth of
the Internet
By early 1996 Microsoft was totally focused on making
every product Internet enabled.
The watershed Bill Gates December 1995 memo had caused the
team developing Small Business Server 4.0 to make Internet connectivity a
top priority.
To help accomplish this, Microsoft developed the Internet
Connectivity Wizard for Small Business Server 4.0, designed to help small
business end users rapidly and successfully establish an Internet presence
with a select group of Small Business Server-compatible ISPs.
When Small Business Server 4.0 was released in October
1997 (the first major public notch in Small Business Server history),
small businesses were already growing accustomed to dial-up ISP accounts,
POP3 email, and web browsing. The Proxy Server and Exchange Server in Small Business Server
4.0 were simply a natural extension of what small business PC users were
already accomplishing on a standalone basis.
1997 was also the year that Microsoft acquired Vermeer
Technologies for its award-winning FrontPage web authoring software.
FrontPage 97, when used in conjunction with FrontPage Server extensions at
the ISP, allowed end users to develop sophisticated web sites without
having to know any type of programming or HTML coding.
Following the release of Small Business Server 4.0, Web
sites, e-mail, and Internet access usage continued to skyrocket.
IDC/Link’s 1998 study found that small business Internet usage had more
than doubled between 1996 and 1997.
How Field Feedback Impacted Small Business Server History
During this timeframe, Microsoft also got feedback from computer resellers and systems integrators
on the Internet Connectivity Wizard.
Computer resellers and systems integrators supporting Small Business Server
4.0 found that their small business customers were more interested in
working with local ISPs and maintaining existing ISP accounts than signing
up for new ISP accounts from large national ISPs through the Internet
Connectivity Wizard.
So for Small Business Server 4.5, Microsoft reshaped the
Internet Connectivity Wizard to give computer resellers and systems integrators
and small businesses more options.
The wizard now could either launch a highly automated
procedure for creating new ISP accounts or provide the flexibility to
easily configure existing email, access, and publishing accounts through a
set of new wizards. In addition, Microsoft created a set of worksheets
that could be sent to the ISP to help with the planning of key Internet
configuration data.
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