A number of Scottish Partners have been asking the MS Scotland team about what is happening with the next version of Exchange.  Well the good news is that earlier this week, Microsoft published a limited preview video and blog post regarding the next version of Exchange Server, code-named Exchange ‘14’, via a video posted on the Exchange Team Blog and. In the video and interviews Microsoft discusses that it is building the next version of Exchange, code-named Exchange 14, and it will be designed, built, and tested for Software-plus-Services. More than 3.5 million people and more than 1,500 schools and universities worldwide are using Exchange 14 as a service through Exchange Labs, a program begun in late 2007. Next month Microsoft is releasing the latest code to Exchange Labs users. For more information, visit the Exchange Team Blog.

Some really good information on this Blog and well worth adding to your RSS feeds. Given the current economic climate within Scotland, it may be worth looking at the work done by Ferris Research around reduction of costs by implementing Exchange 2007 - in a survey of several enterprise customers, they found that the cost of running Exchange 2007 was roughly half that of running Exchange 2003.   Any more importantly Microsoft anticipates that E14 will bring that cost down by a similar margin yet again.  Just make sure your customers have Software Assurance!

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