The unusually long rainy season has left a lot of Jakarta's roads in terrible disrepair, with even the city's main thoroughfares suffering damage in sections.

Last week, my frustration over the city authority's inaction to fix its roadways was alleviated for a brief moment as I was entertained by an amusing sight.

A Porsche in front of me was seen struggling across a segment of Jakarta's damaged Jl. Gatot Subroto. I felt so sorry for the multibillion-rupiah car.

We all know that this automotive masterpiece from Germany is designed to be driven on a well-paved road, not the pothole-ridden streets of Indonesia. The suspension surely would have been damaged as the engineering marvel bounced in and out of the holes.

There's no doubt about it; to get the best experience in driving a sports car, you definitely need a car like a Porsche and a roadway like an autobahn.

The same is true of the corporate computing environment today. To get the best experience, you need a secure, trusted server operating system at the back end and a super-duper client operating system at the front end. The more users there are in an organization, the more benefits there will be.

I believe this is the reason why so many companies are still hesitant to jump into Microsoft Windows Vista. It is common knowledge that people are not embracing Vista as enthusiastically as Microsoft would like. Even individual users, like you and I, still prefer to use Microsoft Windows XP.

This is why Microsoft decided to extend the final sale of Windows XP from January to June 2008, despite the fact Vista was launched more than one year ago. Microsoft now even allows PC manufacturers to offer buyers an option to downgrade from OEM Vista Business or Ultimate to Windows XP.

Last week, Microsoft launched the long-awaited Windows Server 2008 in Jakarta. The event at the Jakarta Convention Center, which exceeded Microsoft Indonesia's expectations, was attended by more than 6,000 people.

"It took us three years to develop Windows Server 2008, and around 5,000 developers were involved," said Chris Sharp, General Manager for Server & Tools at Microsoft Asia-Pacific, during an interview on the sidelines of the event.

"And more than two million copies of the beta version were downloaded, making it one of the most extensively tested operating system products," added Karen Carter, Server's Director of Marketing, who had flown all the way from Redmond, the U.S., to join the product launch in 18 Asia-Pacific cities (Indonesia being the third in the launch).

If users wish to drive a sports car named Windows Vista, they now have Windows Server 2008 as their autobahn. At least, as I see it, corporate IT divisions now have a stronger reason to drive the migration into Vista across their organizations.

Along with the new server-operating system, Microsoft launched Visual Studio 2008 and Microsoft SQL server 2008. The first is a set of application development tools and the latter is a Microsoft relational database system.

"In developing these three new products, we focused on four pillars," Chris said. The four pillars include secure and trusted computing; virtualization; Web development; and Business Intelligence (BI).

Windows Server 2008 comes with security features such as a BitLocker. This feature works best when the server is used in combination with Windows Vista. It enables individual users to encrypt their hard disks for security purposes.

Why do people need a server, by the way? There are a number of benefits. First, they can have the applications installed in a single place, which is the server. Users from anywhere can access them and run the applications on their individual desktops or notebook PCs.

If a business application has to be upgraded, the IT team do not have to send a copy to all their branches and check whether these branches have installed it on their local servers. They only have to perform the upgrade on the server at their headquarters.

For example, a multinational company no longer distributes CDs containing the latest version of its core application to almost 30 notes of its network.

"The migration from the old Windows Server 2003 to the 2008 was effortless," the company's information officer told me recently. "What made us happier was that we were able to do away with the maintenance of our branch servers," he added.

Virtualization has been a buzzword for some time. This feature enables a company to set up multiple virtual servers on a single physical server. And, because fewer servers are needed thanks to virtualization, a company can save on overhead costs such as air-conditioning.

Virtualization is not an entirely new concept. Another enhancement in Windows Server 2008 is the improved interoperability and flexibility in setting it up.

"Those who still feel more comfortable working with command lines can now do it in Windows Server 2008," said Chris, adding that one of the main benefits of the new platform was that it allowed IT professionals to manage complex functions in just a few clicks.

The tools inside Visual Studio 2008 have also been designed to make Windows Server 2008 the right choice for Web servers. In the meantime, SQL Server 2008 has a built-in capability to enable BI, a function that is increasingly critical in business today.

The logical question is whether small and medium businesses also need Windows Server 2008. The benefits will be the same, especially when the SMBs have already implemented Windows Vista.

However, there may be a lot of features beyond the server core that they may not really need.

"Down the road, we will also release Windows Small Business Server 2008, or SBS 2008, and Windows Essential Business Server 2008," said Jagannath Narendran, Director of Infrastructure Servers of Microsoft Asia-Pacific, who also attended the press interview.

In the past few years, Microsoft has been seriously targeting the business needs of its customers. There is a wide array of products that only business organizations will benefit from, such as Microsoft Dynamics and Unified Communication.

Fortunately, the end users like us can still benefit from the new versions or completely new products. With the Windows Server 2008, for example, the Porsche driver now has a smoother street to race his car on.

In the meantime, news has it that Bill Gates is coming to town in May for the Government Leaders Forum. Let's hope more positive news will come out of his visit and discussions with some of our top brass.

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