Microsoft makes case for upgrade to Exchange 2010
IDG News Service - Microsoft is emphasizing the potentially money-saving features of Exchange 2010, the latest revamp of its e-mail application, officially released today at its TechEd European customer conference in Berlin.
With Exchange 2010, Microsoft is trying to entice CIOs in a tough economic environment to upgrade, contending that Exchange 2010's new features let companies buy cheaper storage systems, eliminate their voice-mail systems and drop licenses for separate e-mail archiving software.
Although enterprise e-mail changes and deployments can take time, Microsoft expects Exchange 2010 to be "quite aggressively deployed," said Stephen Elop, president of Microsoft's business division, which oversees products such as the Office suite.
As part of its case to customers, Microsoft is citing a study it commissioned from research analyst Forrester. The study says that companies can expect to recoup their costs of deploying Exchange 2010 within six months through savings in other areas.
Exchange 2010 can now be used with less expensive attached storage devices rather than SANs (storage area networks), Elop said. Another money-saving feature is Exchange's ability to take voice mail messages. A speech-to-text feature lets users read rather than listen to the messages. Microsoft has also added an e-mail archiving feature, which Elop said eliminates the need for companies to purchase other archiving software.
While promoting the new software release as an economizing measure, Microsoft acknowledged there will be a "slight" increase over previous versions of Exchange for advanced features such as archiving and voice mail.
The new version has other features to make e-mail more manageable, such as conversation threading, the ability to ignore ongoing conversations between co-workers, and protections to ensure that e-mail with sensitive information isn't released. On the security side, Microsoft also released Forefront Protection 2010 for Exchange.
At the conference, Microsoft is also pushing Windows Server 2008 R2, the latest version of the server product. Last week, Microsoft made an abrupt change to its product roadmap. The company was not planning on making Exchange 2007 compatible with Windows Server 2008 R2. This meant that those who wanted to upgrade to the latest server product also had to use Exchange 2010.
"Earlier this year we made a decision in one direction, and due to the feedback we have received on this blog and elsewhere, we have reconsidered," wrote Kevin Allison, a general manager for Exchange, on a blog post. "In the coming calendar year we will issue an update for Exchange 2007 enabling full support of Windows Server 2008 R2."
Microsoft has not given a date when the update may be released.
In other news at TechEd, Microsoft released a community technology preview for SQL Server 2008 R2, which will be available for download on the company's Web site.
Reprinted with permission from
Story copyright 2009 International Data Group. All rights reserved.
Microsoft Exchange 2010
Additional Resources



White Papers & Webcasts
Death to PST Files
Download Now
Business Process Framework Demo
Learn about Configurable Business Processes and Calculated Fields. Watch Now!
A Green Architectural Strategy That Puts IT in the Black
Levergage green computing across your data center. Read more now.
Manager Experience Demo
Go beyond self-service solutions to perform more effectively. Watch Now.
Quantifying the Business Value of VMware View
Learn why you should invest in a centralized virtual desktop.
WAN Optimization as a Managed Service: More than Network Cost Savings
View this Webcast Now!
Forrester Consulting Mobility Study: Taking Control of Enterprise Mobile Device Diversity
Download Now
Asia-Pacific Enterprise Network Solutions
Learn through this Webcast how your business can achieve reliability, performance and value in hard-to-reach locations within the Asia-Pacific region.
What IT Must Do to Support Employee-Owned BlackBerry, iPhone and Android Mobile Devices
Download Now
Mainsoft Webcast w/ Forrester Research: Drive SharePoint Adoption in Lotus Notes Shops
How can you drive mainstream user adoption of Microsoft SharePoint when your users rely on Lotus Notes?
Computerworld Reports
Disaster Recovery & Cost Savings Zone
Thousands of customers world-wide have turned to virtualization solutions from Riverbed as a way to reduce costs.

