Unified Communications Group Team Blog : Exchange

Exchange 2010: Saving Money, Delighting Users, Protecting Communications

UCG — Mon, 09 Nov 2009 08:00:00 GMT

Today, at Tech∙Ed in Berlin we announced that Exchange 2010 is available. This version of Exchange is like no other for many reasons. One reason is that we built it as a service from the beginning, and over two years ago it became the e-mail service for universities around the world via our Live@Edu offering. In building Exchange 2010, we also broke new ground with low cost storage support, built-in archiving, and a truly unified inbox across the PC, phone and browser. Here we are today, with over 15 million users on the service, thousands of IT organizations testing Exchange Server 2010, thousands of technology consultants trained, and more positive buzz than we’ve ever had for a release of Exchange.

While this is an exciting day, it happens during a very challenging time. Your world is complicated. IT organizations like yours are under cost pressure like never before, and you need to justify every investment you make. Security, availability, data protection and compliance requirements are becoming more intense. The evolution of software-plus-services creates new possibilities that require you to think carefully about many decisions you make today. Today’s workers have high expectations – higher than ever before – of what technology can do to make them more productive in their jobs. These issues are particularly relevant for IT Professionals, like you, that make a living managing the communications technology for their organizations.

In building this release of Exchange, we’ve worked hard to address many of the issues you are facing. Let’s talk about cost savings. Exchange 2010 early adopters are consistently telling us that they are seeing huge savings from our new low-cost storage options. BGC Partners (one of the world’s leading inter-dealer brokers) has already saved $1 million by replacing their SAN with DAS (direct-attached storage) using Exchange 2010, and expects to save 50 percent on their storage costs. Morgan Keegan (a US-based investment firm) is cutting storage costs by 15% and has saved $400,000 in hardware costs by using DAS with Exchange Server 2010. Morgan Keegan expects to boost IT administrators’ productivity by up to 30 percent and reduce recovery time by 20 percent. What’s remarkable about these examples of storage cost savings with Exchange 2010 is that these companies are also dramatically increasing users’ mailbox size. We are seeing more and more companies now giving their users huge mailboxes -- like Elabs at 5GB; and Nasdaq at 10GB. Now, low cost storage AND large mailboxes are possible.

Built–in archiving and voicemail are two other areas where we are seeing IT organizations save money with Exchange 2010. TriWest Healthcare Alliance is saving about $250,000 with Exchange 2010 by avoiding the cost for an independent archiving and retention system, and Lifetime Products is saving over $70,000 per year by avoiding a 3rd party voice-mail contract. Today Forrester released a study of Exchange 2010 “Total Economic Impact” where they found that organizations can expect a 48% ROI with Exchange 2010 and a payback period of under 6 months.

Last week we announced the amazing progress we are making in helping organizations efficiently manage e-mail by moving all or some of their users to the cloud. Exchange Online (part of our Business Productivity Online Suite) is now available in 36 countries, and in recent months some of the new customers we have added include Aon Corporation, Aviva PLC, Barry-Wehmiller, Hofstra University, Lions Gate Entertainment, McDonald’s Corporation, Rexel Group, Swedish Red Cross, Tyco Flow Control, University of Ohio, and Westcon. Hundreds of others have chosen the Business Productivity Online Suite in recent months. Here’s what McDonald’s is saying about Microsoft Online:

“Within McDonald’s, collaboration and communication tools are critical to our success and ongoing innovation, and with Microsoft Online Services, we found a cost-effective yet familiar, intuitive solution that we could trust with our business communications. We have already completed over half of the corporate rollout and, by early in the next year, we will be fully deployed throughout our organization. With Microsoft Online Services, we expect to reduce our IT costs and increase our productivity.” -- Chris Millington, global chief technology officer and senior vice president of Shared Services, McDonald’s

Exchange 2010 is delighting end users by unifying communications within a single inbox. With the new Voice Mail Preview (possibly my favorite new feature!), you get a speech-to-text preview of voice mails right in Outlook, and with new SMS Text Messaging, you can send and receive texts from your inbox. So all your communications – for e-mail, IM, voice mail and text messages – are in one spot. One of my favorite things to show my family, friends and customers (or anyone willing to let me demo for them!) is MailTips. MailTips warn me – before I send an e-mail – if a recipient is out of office, if I am about to send a mail to a large group, or if a recipient is outside of the company. I know this will help me from committing an embarrassing e-mail gaffe!

In addition to saving me from embarrassment, MailTips are also a first line of defense in protecting company data – by warning me before I send information outside of the company. In addition to giving me – as an e-mail user – more ways to protect company information, Exchange 2010 also gives IT the ability to encrypt messages based on sender, receiver or even the content of the message and attachments (for example, anything with the phrase “internal use only”). And with the latest release of Forefront Protection for Exchange, IT can add an additional layer on top of what is built in to Exchange 2010.

So - starting today - we hope IT professionals like you will enjoy learning more about Exchange 2010 and trying it out for yourself. You can see our launch keynotes from Tech∙Ed Berlin (including my on-stage demo!), Exchange Connections in Las Vegas, and lots of cool demos at our virtual launch – www.thenewefficiency.com. Enjoy!

Julia White
Director, Microsoft Exchange

Exchange 2010 – Revving the Engines for Launch

UCG — Tue, 27 Oct 2009 07:10:00 GMT

Two weeks ago we announced that Exchange 2010 was code complete and, as we get ready for launch, we’re seeing some amazing results from our early adopter customers. They are so good, that I can’t help sharing some of these early highlights – just a sneak peek of what is to come.

One server, many solutions

One of the things I’m most excited to see is the evolution of Exchange from an e-mail server to a multi-workload communications backbone. Some organizations are now bringing in Exchange to do the job once managed by four or five different systems, and the results are really impressive. With Exchange 2010, you’ve got a full e-mail, calendar and contacts solution, built-in information protection, built-in mobile e-mail and mobile device management, a full voice mail replacement, and a brand new archiving, retention and discovery solution. Exchange administrators have seen their roles grow from simply providing great e-mail to providing an end-to-end communications solutions. Customers are seeing impressive results in each of these workloads.

It does e-mail

It always has, but in 2010, it does it better. With the new high availability, disaster recovery and back up capabilities combined with the significant IO reduction a few very cool things become possible. First, what used to take multiple applications to achieve mailbox resiliency becomes possible using just Exchange. Second, a very large mailbox – even 10 gigs+ becomes very affordable and supportable. With Exchange 2010, a major government agency increased mailbox sizes by 10x, reduced failover times by four hours, decreased IT admin and storage costs and expects cost savings of up to $1 million per year with Exchange 2010.

It makes everyone mobile

Let’s face it – people want access to e-mail, calendar and contact information from everywhere. Outlook Web App, Outlook Mobile and Exchange Active Sync have long been the leading solutions for web e-mail and mobile phone access for businesses. But, we didn’t rest on our laurels with 2010, and it shows in the positive user feedback– from the improved OWA UI with integrated IM/presence, to conversation view in mobile, to EAS device management – every user can now have a rich mobile experience, while you don’t have to pay anything more since it’s all ‘in the box’.

It replaces voice mail (and gives a text preview!)

A mid-size innovative manufacturing company deployed Exchange 2010 voice mail avoiding a $43,000 annual maintenance contract for their legacy voice mail and reduced IT support required by more than 1000 hours – providing an additional $28,000 savings. And, with the new text preview, a national auto dealer has improved their sales rep response time to voice mails by 50%, which means a better sales experience for customers.

It archives and discovers

At a regional healthcare group, they are able to use the integrated archiving, retention and discovery capabilities of 2010 saving them the cost and maintenance of using third party solutions that resulted in $250,000 they didn’t have to spend – and that was just the first year savings.

It protects people

Using the combination of Exchange 2010 and Forefront Protection 2010 for Exchange Server, a global electronics firm has seen a 90% reduction in unwanted e-mail, meaning less time deleting and more time making new gadgets for you and me. And, that’s just the tip of the iceberg -- there’s a lot more around information protection we’ll showcase at launch.

When you think about the full value of Exchange together it’s an impressive package! And, I’m really pleased that many of you clearly agree -- a recent customer survey we did showed that 40% of Exchange customers are planning to move to 2010 within the next 6 months. This certainly validates the feedback I’ve gotten from our customers and partners about the value delivered by Exchange 2010.

Since I know many of you are underway with deployment planning, I wanted to take this opportunity to make sure everyone knows the licensing options, so you can plan accordingly. Just like 2007, Exchange 2010 will offer a Standard CAL and an Enterprise CAL. Standard CAL includes all e-mail, calendar and contacts capabilities, mobile messaging with Exchange ActiveSync, plus the new over-the-air updates of Outlook Mobile on Windows Mobile 6.1+, and Outlook Web App. The Exchange Enterprise CAL adds e-mail archiving, discovery and retention functionality, integrated voice mail (i.e. unified messaging) and Forefront Protection for Exchange.

On the server side, Exchange Server Standard will now support high availability, so all customers can take full advantage of the new database availability group capabilities. Exchange Server Enterprise enables configurations with up to 100 databases per server.

All of the specifics around pricing and licensing will be available when we launch, but just to give you an idea, a customer buying a new license will pay about $55 for Standard CAL and about $35 for Enterprise CAL. Existing customers with Software Assurance, of course, only pay for the renewal of Software Assurance, so this price is much lower. And for the servers, a typical customer can expect to pay about $550 for Standard Server and $3200 for Enterprise Server. As you know, pricing depends on the license type you choose, and if you buy via one of the CAL suites further discounts apply, so definitely take this as a ballpark vs absolute. As always, your reseller partner or Microsoft rep can get you the specifics on pricing once Exchange 2010 is available.

I can’t wait to share more of the incredible results our Exchange 2010 customers are seeing and talk with you about your Exchange 2010 plans. I hope you can join us at TechEd Europe in Berlin, Exchange Connections in Las Vegas or online at www.thenewefficiency.com as we launch Exchange 2010. It’s going to be a great time!

Julia White
Director of Exchange Marketing
Microsoft

Exchange Server 2010 Release Candidate is feature complete and available for download today!

UCG — Tue, 18 Aug 2009 06:00:00 GMT

Today is another exciting day for the Exchange team. We’re pleased to announce that Exchange Server 2010 is feature complete and folks can download it today. This milestone reflects our ongoing commitment to making Exchange 2010 the most effective messaging and collaboration solution available. For more information, please check out our blog post on the Exchange Team Blog.

You can download the Exchange 2010 release candidate from the TechNet site.

We’re looking forward to hearing your feedback!

Thanks,

Julia White
Director of Exchange Marketing
Microsoft

Newspaper Company Uses Exchange Server 2007 to Help the News Stay New

UCG — Thu, 02 Jul 2009 11:00:00 GMT

This month’s customer spotlight focuses on a newspaper company using Exchange Server 2007 to help their reporters quickly and efficiently cover more breaking news. As you may know, Exchange Server is currently the most widely used messaging server and growing, and is the cornerstone of Microsoft’s unified communications solution. What you may not know is how some of these companies are uniquely benefiting from Exchange Server deployments.

That’s where Utusan Group comes in! Utusan Group, a Malaysian publishing company with over 1300 employees, quickly recognized how they could increase productivity by implementing Exchange Server. Providing readers with up-to-the-minute news is paramount for any news reporting agency and reporters are so barraged with numerous potential stories that they often find they do not have the time to cover every topic. Utusan’s journalists were using a free e-mail solution to receive reports of breaking news and file their stories with the editor. Due to the time sensitive nature of news reporting, having an e-mail solution that is reliable is vital to the success of their business. After experiencing reliability issues with their previous solution, Utusan decided to upgrade to an enterprise-level offering. Their choice: Microsoft Exchange Server 2007 because of the product’s extensive capabilities and reliability. With Exchange Server 2007, Utusan’s reporters can quickly and securely file their stories via e-mail from the field and move on to cover the next breaking news assignment. The result: More timely news articles for their readers.

To read more about Utusan’s experience with Exchange Server 2007, please see their case study.

Here are a few other links to interesting accounts of customers experiencing benefits with Exchange Server 2007:

· Indiana University staff enjoys greater flexibility and telecommuting options with “anywhere, anytime” access to their e-mail and voicemail.

· Employees of Central Technology Services, a subsidiary of Central Bancompany, save 15 minutes a day with Exchange Server.

· Construction giant Webcor Builders takes advantage of Exchange Server’s integrated e-mail, search and archiving capabilities.

· QubicaAMF, one of the largest bowling manufacturers and suppliers in the world, uses Exchange Server to help simplify communications and increase productivity.

· Golden Pyramids Plaza experiences a 30 per cent boost in productivity with Exchange Server.

For additional case studies, you can also visit the Microsoft Case Study site: www.microsoft.com/casestudies.

While Exchange Server 2007 is currently available for purchase, in April Microsoft introduced a beta of the Exchange Server 2010 that builds on all of the great features Exchange Server 2007 currently offers. For those of you interested in testing the latest version of Exchange or would like more information on the product, please check it out at: http://www.microsoft.com/exchange/2010.

IBM’s Email Strategy Takes Another Sharp Turn

UCG — Mon, 19 Jan 2009 17:03:00 GMT

Last week, in more pre-Lotusphere PR, IBM announced their intent to acquire Outblaze’s email technology and make it part of Bluehouse, IBM’s cloud-based social computing and collaboration offering, which is now in beta.

This is a fascinating acquisition. Why acquire Outblaze when Lotus Notes is the #2 business email solution in the market? What will happen to the hosted Notes messaging solution IBM announced last fall? Why not scale Lotus Notes to a deliver a multi-tenant or Web-accessible offering? Why make customers choose between Notes for on-premises email or Outblaze/LotusLive Notes for cloud-based email? Couldn’t IBM convince enough users to get on hosted notes so they had to buy some consumer grade users to test scalability?

When I talk to customers, they tell me they do not want a technology ultimatum – a hard choice between a roadmap in the cloud or on-premises. Customers require the flexibility to use both and move between both modes of delivery, and that’s why our approach with Exchange Server and Exchange Online is catching on. Will IBM’s new email strategy give customers that flexibility? Only time will tell.

As in the days of Workplace, IBM’s email strategy seems once again murky.

Brandon Hoff

Exchange Technical Product Manager

LotusFear?

UCG — Mon, 19 Jan 2009 16:30:00 GMT

Last Wednesday, IBM kicked off their pre-Lotusphere PR barrage by claiming momentum for Lotus Notes. Throwing out a half-dozen stats, IBM seemingly mounted an unassailable argument for the resurgence of the once-thought-dead Notes, except for one thing – most of it was false.

Case in point, early versions of the IBM release quote Gartner stats about market share, but by Friday, IBM had doctored the release to remove the Gartner stats. Maybe this article in Computerworld (Au contraire: Exchange's lead over Notes is actually 'getting bigger and bigger,' says Gartner <http://www.computerworld.com/action/article.do?command=viewArticleBasic

&articleId=9126118&intsrc=news_ts_head> ) had something to do with it?

David Scult, Microsoft’s GM for field and partner marketing, does a great job setting the facts straight here <http://www.microsoft.com/presspass/features/2009/jan09/01-16QAcult.mspx>. Among my favorite highlights from David:

· In response to IBM’s claim that Notes is in half of the Fortune 100 – “Lotus Notes was once in at least 67 percent of the Fortune 100 companies, so in that context, 50 percent now isn’t terribly impressive.”

· And according to a Ferris Research survey <http://www.ferris.com/?p=318858> of 917 organizations worldwide, Exchange has a 65 percent share of the messaging market, while Notes/Domino has a 10 percent share. Ferris’s findings are consistent with Gartner’s lead e-mail analyst, Matt Cain, who publicly stated <http://www.serverwatch.com/trends/article.php/3682041> last year, “We forecast that Microsoft will get 70 percent of the commercial e-mail market by 2010.”

Even the Lotus Notes community has compiled a list of companies that are switching to Exchange from Notes, citing customers including ExxonMobil, JP Morgan Chase, Deutsche Bank, and Novartis. <http://dominoorexchange.pbwiki.com/>. (Note: you need a password to access this wiki.)

If you really dig into IBM’s numbers, you’ll find that they have started quoting “licensed” Notes users. A licensed user with no timeframe is exactly that – a user that either is, or was, licensed on Lotus Notes. Is that a useful market figure, quoting licenses sold in 1994? Using the same approach, IBM could also tout 100+ million ‘licensed’ 123 users.

But the real question this IBM FUD raises is this: why is IBM so desperate to prove that Notes is not slowly dying? Why is IBM so scared? My guess is:

· IBM is steadily losing market share based on more than 10 million people abandoning Lotus Notes for Exchange and SharePoint. The momentum is increasing as more than 2 million began the switch in the last 6 months.

· This transition is hastened by economic urgency to cut costs and the availability of Exchange Online and SharePoint Online <http://www.microsoft.com/online> , to which IBM has no answer (IBM’s current ‘hosted Notes’ offering is only for orgs from 1k to 10k users, and is not multi-tenant <http://www.gartner.com/DisplayDocument?doc_cd=162564&refg_rss> cloud-computing, and press reports indicate that IBM is even losing market share to cloud-based consumer email applications).

· In the end, the loss of Notes means it is harder for IBM to sell Sametime, Connections, or Quickr.

· And, if you’re IBM, the more critical issue is that IBM Global Services, which accounts for huge portions of IBM’s profit, looses the opportunity to charge IBM customers consulting and integration fees to make its disparate technologies work together.

Marian Anderson said “fear is a disease that eats away at logic”, and sadly, that seems to apply even to respected market leaders such as IBM. We saw the first signs of fear and desperation last Wednesday, and it was not becoming of a respectable company such as IBM.

I look forward to seeing what else IBM has coming this week, and I hope they will hold the bar a bit higher for their PR. Whether they do or not, we will be on this blog offering our perspective on the news.

Julia White

Director of Exchange Marketing

Microsoft

Microsoft Offers Free Trial of Exchange Server 2007 for Enterprise Customers

UCG — Tue, 24 Apr 2007 19:26:00 GMT

Some great news from the Unified Communications Group. Exchange is now offering a FREE trial of Exchange 2007.

This free trial service enables enterprise customers to experience Microsoft^® Exchange Server 2007, the industry’s leading platform for e-mail, calendaring and unified messaging. The trial service will be implemented and managed by Unisys Corp., a worldwide technology services and solutions company. As a result, enterprise customers will have the opportunity to evaluate the many new features of Exchange Server 2007, including anywhere access using a PC, the Web or a mobile phone. Customers can also experience the new unified messaging capabilities, built-in protection technologies and operational efficiencies of Exchange Server 2007, aimed at helping employees make faster and more accurate decisions, gain immediate access to information, and stay connected across many locations.