Fact check: The first major Microsoft product launched via Webcast

Raymond Chen

In 2009, while hosting the Webcast launch of Office Communications Server 2007 R2 (what a mouthful; no wonder they renamed it Lync), Stephen Elop claimed that this was the first time Microsoft had launched a major product via Webcast. Elop’s crack team of marketing researchers apparently forgot about the Webcast launch, just three months earlier, of Windows Small Business Server 2008. Maybe somebody can find an even earlier Webcast launch of a major Microsoft product.

(Perhaps Elop is claiming that Small Business Server is not a major product, but by that standard, neither is Office Communications Server, which is arguably even more of a niche product than SBS.)

Raymond Chen

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