ISA 2004 on a second server from SBS and Microsoft's thinking

Charlie and Guy from the SBS teams in Redmond are in a discussion of SBS SP1 right now and a big discussion has centered on ISA 2004 and can or will there be plans to break out ISA to a separate server. This is a big NO. According to their research they only have 6% of SMB's that have more than one server. So the added expense is not a viable thing for most SMB's. I agree with that since most can't even get fully off or want to get off of Win98. The SBS team appears to not be concerned with this right now because of market share and research.

There definitely appears to be a different segment of SMB's and those that support them. The first is those that use a $49 Linksys router and the second perhaps is those that have 30-50 PC's and want a beefier box for security. ISA Server appliances are now starting to appear as well from such vendors as HP and others but then those will cost you $2-$3K.

That's why I've settled on things like a Sonicwall device that for under $800 will give a better security defense than a cheap SOHO router but may still have flaws.

Oh well, life ain't perfect folks but we're trying!