Exchange Starts Office 2010 Testing Cycle
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News Analysis. Tomorrow, Microsoft plans to release Exchange Server 2010 Beta 1 ahead of supporting Office System software. |
For enterprises looking for better e-mail anytime, anywhere and on anything, Exchange Server 2010 promises much. My eWEEK Labs colleague Jim Rapoza has posted a review and slide show of Beta 1. His overall reaction is encouraging.
Microsoft plans to make Exchange 2010 available for download on April 15. The public beta is coming well ahead of Office 14, which is now officially Office 2010 (are you really surprised about that?). But Microsoft is at least a quarter from releasing an Office 2010 "technical preview." A broadly available public beta would be atypical for Office, but called for. Office 2010 will be a tough sell, I predict, because Version 2007 offers so many usability improvements. Better then to get customers testing as soon as possible. Microsoft will release 32-bit and 64-bit Office versions, which perhaps is one reason why the beta lags behind Exchange 2010.
My guess, if Microsoft is smart: Office 2010 will become available to testers around the time Windows 7 releases to manufacturing. Microsoft could still capitalize on synergies between the application suite and operating system, even if they release a year apart. Many enterprises will wait 12 months before beginning Windows 7 deployments, which is still enough for Office 2010 to release later but be deployed simultaneously. For most organizations, the operating system would require more testing and application certification than the productivity suite.
Circling back to Exchange 2010, Jim writes that "there aren't a lot of ground-breaking new features," but "the biggest and most notable differences ... will be in the much improved Outlook Web Access Webmail client."
With Google making its Apps Premiere Edition (GAPE) more appealing to enterprises, Microsoft needs to do something to hold onto existing customers and also to encourage upgrades from older Exchange versions. Microsoft has to think anytime, anywhere access, competitively with GAPE and delivering what customers need. That's mail access from any device, anywhere and anytime—and not necessarily from an e-mail client.
Jim writes:
The Outlook Web Access client behaves much more like a full Outlook client, offering everything from pop-up tips (for example, when a message is too large) to suggested contacts when entering a name. For businesses, the most welcome new capabilities in the Webmail client are those designed to help businesses delegate administrative tasks and also provide users with more self-help options to cut down on help desk calls.
Microsoft also provides more powerful tools in OWA from the Exchange Control Panel. Jim explains:
The Control Panel also offers access to more powerful features, including the option for users to create their own custom public distribution groups without the need to contact IT staff, or to track the delivery status of their messages. Depending on the role given a user by administrators, end users can also use this feature to control public company mailing lists. This interface can also take advantage of new roles capabilities in Exchange Server 2010 to let administrators delegate capabilities to end users.
Some other notable features:
- Finer ActiveSync control over how devices sync, such as over Wi-Fi, and more control over access and sharing
- Greater control over Federation and the setting of policies for interacting with different Exchange servers
- Improved archiving and finer control over retention policies
- Transcripts attached to voice mail
None of these improvements is must-have, but they do show something interesting: how much Microsoft is preparing Exchange for hosting, as much as on-premises use. I put the OWA changes in context of increased mobility. But they also serve a role for hosted Exchange, too.
[Please send your tips or rumors to watchtips at gmail.com.]
Comments (11)
"None of these improvements is must-have."
Of course , besides bread, water and oxygen , noone of other is a must-have.
If everyone thinks like you , there will be NO innovation on this planet
Try to put some impartial comments ..
Posted by John | April 14, 2009 10:31 PM
"Microsoft also provides more powerful tools in OWA from the Exchange Control Panel. Jim explains: "
Why not let Jim writes Microsoft Watch ? It seems to me he really "watching" Microsoft and its products well.
Jim starts to preview upcoming Microsoft Exchange 2010 while Joe is stuck with Microsoft Vista
Posted by Debbie | April 14, 2009 10:56 PM
Debbie wrote: "Jim starts to preview upcoming Microsoft Exchange 2010 while Joe is stuck with Microsoft Vista."
Actually, Joe is stuck with Windows 7 Beta 1, Debbie. If Jim wrote Microsoft Watch--and I'm sure he would do a great job--Microsoft wouldn't give him early access to software like Exchange Server 2010.
Joe
Posted by Joe | April 14, 2009 11:14 PM
I think a major focus of the Exchange 2010 release is end user benefits and ease of managing Exchange environments in addition to making deployment less of restrictive requirement. Microsoft is also adding more options to the table, OWA supporting other browsers such as Firefox and Safari while providing the same richness that's available in Internet Explorer.
The major realities of this release that might irk some businesses is Windows Server 2008 and later support. Its one of the things made Exchange 2007 such a major departure on the hardware side. But, I think it guarantees a seamless experience from the client to the server. I am looking forward to give this a go. I hope it works on the Server 2008 R2 beta.
Posted by Andre Da Costa | April 14, 2009 11:53 PM
I guess there are still a few people out there running their own mail servers. Seems like a lot of trouble and expense when you can just use gmail for free with 1gig storage? Seems like a bit of a dying application domain.
Posted by smist08 | April 14, 2009 11:57 PM
@smitst08
When you have Goverment contracts or work for a financial institution that's heavily regulated using some outsourced E-mail solution is not an option. And for larger corporations something that's largely unmanaged and decentralized isn't going to do the job either. Especially when protecting intellectual property and customer information are of importance.
Would you want me sending loan documentation on your behalf on an unencrypted decentralized system when I just needed to get it to a branch office in another region?
And I wonder does G-mail have hooks into sharepoint, BIS, SAP, CRM, Communication's server, Unified messaging systems? That being said an enterprise Messaging system isn't for every business but for many businesses it's worth the price of admission.
@Joe
Is Debbie an old girlfriend? She seems to hate your guts.
@Andre
Seems like just yesterday I was rolling out 2007. It was fun, but I'm not going to rush into 2010. Might just skip it altogether. Exchange 2007 has been great. Had it in place for 18 months now. Serving 600 users in 12 locales. The thing I dislike is the management console. 2003 allowed you to integrate the management console into any MMC. No such luck in 2007. I actually use the Powershell as much as possible to avoid that godawful GUI.
Posted by Massive Quasars | April 15, 2009 12:20 AM
Safari OWA support?
Nice..... If we upgrade My Mac users can stop using Entourage. Entourage.....SUCKS. It sucks a lot.
Posted by Shilo Norman | April 15, 2009 12:33 AM
@Massive Quasars
i agree.. i could not stand the fact that the MMC didnt had anything to do with my routing AD tasks...
good thing i bought my IT staff and me Exchange Tasksk 2007 , try , you wont go back :)
http://www.u-btech.com
Posted by Joe | April 15, 2009 4:17 PM
Andre Da Costa: Profile of a Microsoft Shill
boycottnovell.com/2009/02/01/andre-da-costa-schwag/
Posted by Andre'sFreeComputers | April 15, 2009 8:19 PM
Please tell me 2010 can run on a server that does not need 8+ gigs of RAM for 90 users. 2007 is HUGE pig.
We migrated from a perfectly running Exchange 2003 server that had 2cores and 2gigs of RAM because my manager thought users would like the OWA better. Yeah because all 6 that use it complained????
Anyhow Exchange 2003 ran like a champ on that hardware, I even P2V'ed it to VMware and it still ran great. We then built a new server for Exchange, quad core with 4gigs of RAM. Well at the end of the first week tons of virtual memory pop-ups, added another mirroed set of drives just to give it a 8gig swap file. After a week the managment console on the server was so slow we could not use it. So then we upgraded to 8gig per MS, better but not great at all. We now have 12gigs of RAM in that box and I hate to do anything on that server because its so slow.
For our 90 users, Exchange 2003 was rock solid on 2 cores with 2gigs of RAM. 98% of the users have no idea we are on 2007 vs 2003. Their phones still work the same way, the email does the same stuff.
I cant imagine how much resources you would need to support 1000+ users.
Hopefully 2010 will be better.
Posted by bettieblu | April 16, 2009 9:36 AM
Malware spike observed in 2008
http://www.fiercecio.com/techwatch/story/malware-spike-observed-2008/2009-04-14
"The latest Symantec Internet Security Threat Report has found a huge increase in the number of security vulnerabilities discovered in software as well as instances of Internet threats. Internet vectors are not limited to high-risk sites either; attackers are actively targeting legitimate websites in order to compromise them and serve up malicious content to unsuspecting visitors.
# Top web-based attack exploited a component of Microsoft Internet Explorer.
# Top attack targeted the Service RPC Handling Remote Code Execution Vulnerability in Microsoft Windows Server.
# Number of malware code signatures went up by 256 percent, a large spike by any measure."
Posted by Chips B Malroy | April 16, 2009 2:54 PM