The last big release of Microsoft Exchange, Exchange Server 2010, marked a major change in Microsoft Office-related products. Exchange 2010 is part of the next wave of Microsoft Office-related products and is the first server in a new generation of Microsoft server technology built from the ground up to work on-premises and as an online service.
Operational and usability improvements promise to make Exchange 2010 a major step up from Microsoft Exchange 2007.
Microsoft Exchange Server 2010 helps you achieve new levels of reliability and performance by delivering features that help to simplify your administration, protect your communications, and delight your users by meeting their demands for greater business mobility.
This release of Exchange 2010 introduces a new integrated e-mail archive and features to help reduce costs and improve the user experience. The improvements in Exchange 2010 fall into three “pillars,” as they are described in Microsoft marketing-speak: flexibility and reliability, anywhere access, and protection and compliance.
This latest release of Exchange 2010 can help you achieve better business outcomes while controlling the costs of deployment, administration, and compliance. Exchange delivers the widest range of deployment options, integrated information leakage protection, and advanced compliance capabilities, that combine to form the best messaging and collaboration solution available.
Microsoft Exchange® Server 2010 Beta helps IT Professionals achieve new levels of reliability with greater flexibility, enhanced user experiences, and increased protection for business communications.
* Flexible and reliable – Exchange Server 2010 gives you the flexibility to tailor your deployment based on your company’s unique needs and a simplified way to keep e-mail continuously available for your users.
* Anywhere access – Exchange Server 2010 helps your users get more done by giving them the freedom to securely access all their communications – e-mail, voice mail, instant messaging, and more – from virtually any platform, Web browser, or device.
* Protection and compliance – Exchange Server 2010 delivers integrated information loss prevention, and compliance tools aimed at helping you simplify the process of protecting your company’s communications and meeting regulatory requirements.
Although pricing for Exchange Server 2010 has not yet been announced, from the initial beta it looks like a very promising upgrade. Because of the major improvements in usability, reliability, and compliance, most Exchange 2007 shops will probably want to upgrade to Exchange 2010 sooner rather than later.