Microsoft R2 close to beta release

Rethink IT, Dec, 2004

Microsoft has yet to release a wide-scale beta of its next Windows Server release, codenamed R2, but apparently it is close to being finalized and will ship in the second half of next year:

To hit that deadline, the company has cut out some features, such as network access protection and file sharing over HTTP.

R2 is expected to include some new features and functionality, but it won't be much more than Windows Server 2003 Service Pack I (SPI) plus some of the myriad Windows Server 2003 service packs that the company has shipped since April 2003. The ultimate goal with R2, like other interim Windows releases, is to allow customers to incorporate it into their environments with relatively little testing.

R2 will be such a relatively minor upgrade, sources said, that Microsoft is planning to swap it out for Windows Server 2003 when it ships. The company isn't planning to charge its volume license customers for the product, and it won't require new client access licenses (CALs) for R2.