Microsoft Small Business Server 2003

The good: Comprehensive feature set; tight integration with Exchange and SharePoint portal services; wizards and task lists simplify setup and ongoing maintenance; competitively priced.

The bad: Still not quite DIY simple; no server-side antivirus or spam filtering; firewall in Standard Edition is limited.

The bottom line: For small businesses that need a business in a box and want to stick with Microsoft technology, SBS 2003 is the only game in town.

Microsoft's Small Business Server (SBS) 2003 is the company's attempt to make its server software both attractive and accessible to small businesses with little IT support. The package, which costs about $100 per desktop, includes e-mail and collaboration services, Internet access with firewall, Web and intranet servers, protected data storage, and printing and faxing. For a little more, you get better security and the ability to run line-of-business applications on SQL Server 2000. If all you need are simple mail, print, and file services, you can also find competing solutions for Linux and the Mac OS. But SBS is competitively priced, more tightly integrated, and offers more out of the box.