DiDio credits resellers and consultants with the success of SBS 2000 and SBS 2003, not Microsoft. "Virtually every reseller we talked to was absolutely enthralled with the product and the money they're making" off it, she says. "You know what they say: 'Nothing says love like cold, hard cash.'"
Resellers and consultants, which sometimes dub SBS "Baby Back Office," praise the product in large part because of the revenue it has brought them. Among the more than 50 resellers contacted, sales increases averaged from 100% to 300% over last year because of SBS deployments and migrations.
"Linux and open source don't have anything that can compete with the bundled feature set of SBS 2003," she says.
But while Microsoft is making hay while the sun shines, DiDio has some advice for the Redmond, Wash.-based developer. "They struck gold here, but now they've got to do some concerted advertising around it to get the word out even more."
And Microsoft would be well advised to make other changes. "Microsoft's licensing model confuses a lot of these SMB customers," DiDio says. "The whole Client Access License concept is tough for them to understand."
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