On behalf of the SBS team, I am extremely pleased to announce that Windows Small Business Server 2008 software has been finalized! Today both SBS Standard and Premium are being released to manufacturing, which means we begin the process of finalizing international versions, creating media, building packaging, delivering the product to distribution channels and handing it off to our OEM partners, so it will be widely available by our November 12 launch. (More information about launch will come in the future.)

As you can imagine, this is an exciting day for me and the rest of the team. Development of SBS 2008 has been a big effort here at Microsoft and the software has undergone extensive testing within Microsoft, by our partners, private tech beta participants and our Technology Adoption Program members. We are proud to say we have truly heard and incorporated input from our partners and customers throughout product planning and development. As a result, we feel very confident that this new release builds on the success of SBS 2003 R2 and makes the power of enterprise IT accessible and affordable for small business, helping them increase productivity and grow. And, just as important, SBS 2008 provides solution providers with a great platform to meet the needs of their small business clients.