According to Michael, he would have needed something like 7 servers to build a reliable network on Windows - 1 for database, 1 for e-mail, 1 for the web server, 1 for file, 2 for print and finally 1 as a backup server.

How about combining File & Print into one - I have never heard of a server devoted entirely to serve print jobs, let alone about having 2 servers - it's always been an industry practice to combine the two. As far as the backup server (I suppose he meant a Backup Domain Controller), any other server (or even all of them) can be assigned that role.