MS have released a cut down version of Windows 2003 called Windows Home Server. It is aimed at homes, and has functionality to replicate drives for backup purposes and serve up multimedia via dynamic dns and MS hosting. It runs headless ie.. without keyboard, mouse or monitor .. but if you boot it up with those, you do get access to significant 2003 functionality. There is no group policy, or active directory, and there is a limit of 10 users per server which can not be increased. However, for a small office that doesn't use exchange, and wants a solution that backups all the clients for them ... this might be ideal. The cost for an oem version of Windows Home Server is about NZ$300 - $399, so considerably cheaper than SBS 2003, and easier to administer. Now, to get a copy to see if Synapse server can run on it !
