Neowin.net

Yesterday saw the launch of three new products. Mainly Windows Server 2003 but also Visual Studio .NET 2003 and SQL Server 2000 64-bit Enterprise Edition. On this day there were launch events in nearly every city in Europe and in most states in America. The main launch headed by Steve Ballmer in San Fransico kicked off shortly after the Official UK launch.

The general message of the day from Microsoft themselves was 'do more with less'. Pasted across the stage in America and the UK, Microsoft really wanted everyone to remember this phrase. Gregg, Arnaud and myself represented neowin at the official UK launch and we interviewed Ivo Salmre (manager for .Net and developer tools and technology at Microsoft) and Paul Randle (Server Solutions Marketing Manager at Microsoft) after the main launch event.

Overall the day was fun and interesting. Although the event didn't demonstrate Windows Server 2003 in much depth, it sucessfully managed to show that the .net framework and Windows Server 2003 are the way ahead for Microsoft.

Read more for a round up of all the days events.

Screenshot: The Event
Screenshot: The main hall
Screenshot: What the day was about
Screenshot: The lovely Dell Cluster
Screenshot: Dependability of Windows Server 2003
Screenshot: Visual Studio .NET 2003
Screenshot: MapPoint .NET
Screenshot: How Windows Server 2003 can help
Screenshot: HP's trained staff list
Screenshot: Hang on, aren't you launching VS .NET 2003?
Screenshot: Errors and freezing
Screenshot: Straight from horse's mouth

Most of the day was filled with partners letting everyone know how wonderful Windows Server 2003 is. Although when questioned about the '100% reliability' claim of Microsoft's Server 2003, the microphone was passed on until no-one could answer.

The two speeches that stood out on the day were that of HP and Tesco.com. Both seemed to work very closely with Microsoft and develop great services because of that. The product demonstrations themselves were entertaining but far from 'real'. First off to wow the crowds was a Dell Quad Xeon cluster of 29 blank-metal machines. Each machine had no OS installed and the aim of the demonstration was to show how Server 2003 coupled with ADS (Automated Deployment Services) could be deployed within 11 minutes whether there were 2000 machines or the 29 sitting in the room. The entire installation did indeed take just 11 minutes and although two machines failed, 27 machines were ready with Windows Server 2003 Enterprise Edition. An impressive demonstration but not one that most could relate to.

Moving on to the next product demonstration of the day. Sitting to the left of the stage was a e7000 series 32-way Itanium 2 system with 32gig of RAM. The aim was to process real live data that typically using a system such as Dual Xeons or Dual Athlons would take near to a month to complete. The claim was that it would take only 45mins. Although we never saw the end of the processing of a "multi-dimensional cube" of data, the data we saw processing was indeed impressive. It showed developers could use such systems and use the WSRM (Windows System Resource Manager) API to allow their programs to change the number of CPU's and balance the load through their own applications.

The third and final demonstration of the day was that of a migration of a SAP based 32-bit database system to its counter part, a 64-bit database system. At the beginning of the demonstration all was well but after the switch MMC began to become unresponsive and the server services wouldn't restart. However, the engineer got everything working (slowly) and the migration was completed sucessfully to the sound of laughter and cheers from the audience. One could only remember Bill plugging in that USB device at the Windows 98 launch.

Confusingly Microsoft used 'Visual Studio .NET' instead of 'Visual Studio .NET 2003' in its slides. A few product boxes were shown and both SQL Server 2000 64-bit Enterprise Edition and Visual Studio .NET 2003 were shown incorrectly. Nevertheless we understood what they meant.

Suprisingly there wasn't a lot of talk or demos of SQL Server 2000 64-bit Enterprise Edition itself. Visual Studio .NET 2003 got a nice airing, showing its capability to intergrate with mobile devices. The main demonstration displayed how a user could use an application designed in Visual Studio .NET 2003 for a company's web server, on a PDA. The customer could edit a record on the PDA device and it would instantly be updated to the database back bone. Microsoft used this opportunity to show off its MapPoint .NET technologies to show how a customer could request a map of a location and display it easily and efficiently on their PDA.

After the event itself we took the chance to put a few questions about Avalon, .Net framework and the future of SQL/Exchange to Ivo Salmre. He was extremely helpful and explained how he believes the .NET framework and Visual Studio .NET 2003 are perfect tools for developers to code in a better way and to be more efficient with their code. It seems Microsoft believes the .NET framework will be a key part of the company's future within the next 2-3 years. Pushing the .NET framework improves coding throughout the industry and having Windows Server 2003 fully supporting the .NET framework and using ASP.NET with IIS6 will only help with this.

As for freebies and press information we were supplied with a bag stamped with Windows Server 2003 over the top which contained a USB stick of memory (32meg). On the stick there are several press releases from important partners and box images of the various Windows Server 2003 releases.

As for the future of Windows Server 2003 we are still waiting on exact confirmation dates of ADAM, RTC, Exchange 2003 and Windows Server 2003's first Service Pack. Most of the big developments in terms of add-ons are supposedly due this summer.

I have included a few photos that we took (see above). The launch itself was fun and it was nice to meet up with certain people and put faces to those names. Here's to the Office 2003 Launch ;)