Yesterday, Microsoft revealed more about its upcoming Windows Server 2008-based server bundle for midsize companies, codenamed Centro. The company made public Centro’s final name, that of Windows Essential Business Server, and announced also that it would be launched on the market in the second half of 2008.

Microsoft said that the Windows Essential Business Server was currently in a limited private beta phase, and that in early 2008 it would expand to a wider public audience.

The server bundle includes Windows Server 2008, Forefront Security for Exchange, Exchange Server 2007, System Center Essentials, as well as the next version of the ISA Server in the Standard Edition. The SQL Server 2008 is also added to the server bundle’s Premium Edition. However, all the software is to be offered as part of a single 64-bit only server package.

Microsoft created Windows Essentials Business Server especially for midsize businesses that are usually using between 25 and 250 computers.

Microsoft’s chief software architect, Bill Gates, first unveiled Centro in September 2005, during the company’s first ever Business Summit for mid-market companies. Then Gates announced that Centro would hit the market in 2007, but it wasn’t quite so. The software tool would have been launched already, if it hadn’t been hung up by delays in Windows Server 2008, which represents the basic part of the server bundle. Centro waited also for the SQL Server 2008 and the new version of the ISA Server, which both delayed its own launch date.

However, now it won’t be long till Centro eventually hits the market. Next week, with the occasion of the annual IT Forum in Barcelona, Microsoft is also expected to demonstrate its server bundle running on Intel hardware.