Just as Bill Gates "discovered" the Internet and the World Wide Web in 1995, he evidently woke up recently to discover there was another niche that his company wasn't serving adequately - the midsize market. Never mind that "SMB," for small and midsize business, has been with us for many years, used even by Microsoft in its marketing efforts. No, there's too much difference, evidently, between an organization with 25 PCs and one with 75, both in terms of their software needs, as well as in the expertise they have to run that software.

Redmond's recently announced "Centro" server system is aimed squarely at that well-defined (ha!) midmarket segment - the organization with 25 to 500 PCs. Recall, though, that Microsoft's Small Business Suite is aimed at organizations with 50 PCs or fewer. Why the overlap? According to Steven VanRoekel, director of midsize business solutions strategy at Microsoft, one differentiator is staff. The midsize organization has "an IT person on staff that actually manages the systems in place. They have an IT budget."

But there's also a difference between a midsize company and a corporation, according to VanRoekel: "The IT staff tends to have very limited resources in terms of time, money and personnel. [Midsize] companies tend to have one or two people that not only manage the server infrastructure, but also the desktops or the fax machines and pretty much anything with a plug or a wire." What they need is management help, and that's what Centro brings to the table.

Centro will have the same Windows Longhorn server that small businesses and large companies will use. It will include Exchange server, like the Small Business Suite. But it will have a "next-generation management experience, plus next-generation security technologies, brought together into a single solution specifically designed for the IT professional in midsize businesses," VanRoekel says. Doesn't that give you a warm and fuzzy feeling?

A better management solution is nothing to sneeze at, but organizations large and small need it. The number of platforms doesn't define either the breadth or the intensity of your IT effort any more than the number of telephones in an organization typifies its marketing effort.

If Microsoft truly was listening to its customers, then it would know we want these services and applications, but also that we want to customize our own solution set to fit the needs of our business - no matter how many PCs we have.