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What Is the difference between Server 2003 and Server 2003 Small Business Edition?

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1. The underlying operating system is the same between the two. Its windows 2003, the difference is that additional applications that come bundled with the Small Business Edition. Ideally in a larger company windows server is installed on one machine and runs one application using seperate servers for email, database and proxy services. Since small businesses usually can't afford many different hardware and software systems SBS comes with several useful applications and is designed to be installed just one machine. There are two versions of SBS the premium version has Exchange(Email), SQL (Database) and ISA (Proxy/firewall) server. http://www.microsoft.com/windowsserver2003/sbs/evaluation/features/default.mspx The Standard SBS edition only comes with Exchange. The other services you see on the microsoft site also come included in plain windows server 2003 however microsoft includes some installation scrips with SBS to make the insall process easier. It's microsoft's attempt to get in on the small business market with applications that are often used by some of the biggest enterprises. You save money over buying the applications individually however the limitations are you can only use one physical computer. You have to buy a transition license to "split" the component applications onto multiple machines once your business and needs expand. SBS is a good deal if you can only afford one server and are prepared to put all your eggs in one basket. If your server goes down so does everything. If you have a lot of users you may also need to higher end hardware, this is when sometimes many low cost servers could meet your needs better than one single high end server.