It is now official! Windows Server 2008 will be launched on February 27th. Joe Wilcox is speculating that the RTM might become available in November. If you didn’t start yet with exploring Microsoft’s new server OS, now might be the right time to so.

Vista SP1 will most likely be available around the same time. I guess many of us won’t deploy Vista until this service pack is out. And you bet that Vista SP1 and Windows Server 2008 is the best combination. Therefore, it probably makes sense to upgrade at least some of your servers at the same time.

So you have about half a year left to learn about the countless changes in both operating systems relevant for corporate environments. And also don’t forget that Office 2007 is still in your pipeline, right? It seems this is going to be a busy summer.

Of course, you could just stick with Windows XP and Windows Server 2003. After all, XP is good enough for surfing the Web and writing texts. Thus, most of your users probably won’t realize the change. However, I strongly believe that Vista and Windows Server 2008 have many new features that will make your work as a system administrator more productive. Not to mention the many security improvements that comes along with it.

It will certainly take some time, until you will have fully mastered their new features and technologies. The earlier your start to learn, the earlier you will benefit from them.