Exchange 2003`s captive customers

For once, when a vendor says it expects sharp uptake of a new release, I believe them. Microsoft`s updated e-mail client and server, Exchange 2003, should reach licensed enterprise customers by the end of the summer, and Microsoft sounds confident about take-up.

Why is this? To hear Microsoft say it, the enhancements in security and productivity will attract Exchange 5.5 and 2000 users. Those are indeed welcome additions, but even Microsoft admits that the software`s expected success will be based, at least in part, on matters outside considerations of technology.

One of these is Microsoft`s Licensing 6.0 model and its maintenance programme, Software Assurance. This maintenance and "upgrade insurance" gives customers automatic access to product updates, for a fee. On introduction, this seemed like a make-or-break strategy for the company, but it`s now paying off.

Having already paid for software assurance and Licensing 6.0, the upgrade is a no-brainer, as Microsoft will admit. "Organisations are now able to deploy Exchange Server 2003 right away to start realising the benefits," says Desmond Nair, Microsoft SA server product manager.

As corporate spending remains tight, and vendors talk up value, return on investment and sweating current assets, upgrade assurance is a shrewd move. Microsoft has found it tough to get customers from Exchange 5.5 to 2000 in the first place, but as 5.5 is starting to show its age (six years), in terms of security and collaborative functionality, and Microsoft`s licensing models deliver more or less as intended for the vendor, the outlook is far more positive this time around.

Another soft strategy for spurring upgrades, also surrounding licensing, is the introduction of a more flexible per-user or per-device licensing mode. The first gives customers added flexibility in serving road warriors and information workers who need a single licence for accessing the software from a variety of devices, wired and wireless. The second helps companies with many deskless or factory workers, who need to access it from the same terminal.

The software giant also plans to extend to customers a universal licence for the connector to enable an unlimited number of business partners and external users to access the Exchange store.

It`s not only Microsoft that benefits from developments around Exchange 2003. The company`s channel model looks after solution providers too, who can expect services income in terms of installation, support and maintenance. Exchange 5.5 mainstream support ends at year-end, and there are increasing requirements for Active Directory on the new products.

For many customers, Exchange 2003 is not considered a major upgrade from 2000. But it does offer significant improvements in terms of server consolidation, Outlook Web Access usability, mobile and wireless support and new anti-spam features.

In addition, the improved performance and stability of Exchange 2003 makes it an ideal server consolidation solution for both version 2000 and version 5.5 customers, overseas sites comment.

The additional functionality can be summed up in the following way:

• Security: Certain services are now disabled by default (for example, SMTP relay, POP3 and Internet Message Access Protocol (IMAP).
• Improved ability to restrict connections as well as e-mail messages, automatic logging off of Web users, as well as new anti-spam features.
• Availability: New eight-node clustering capability and multiple database architecture to allow better scalability and management.
• Performance: New client-side caching for Outlook and enhanced Outlook Web Access.
• Direct connectivity through Windows-powered wireless devices, integrated support for HTML, Extensible HTML (XHTML), Wireless Application Protocol (WAP) 2.x, and compressed HTML (CHTML) mobile micro-browsers.

One Exchange alternative, Gordano`s NTMail, "offers better stability, cost and backups. To backup, I just export the registry key. With Exchange, for 100 users, you need 10GB of media," says one technical director.

Nair recognises NTMail as a good messaging product, but points out that Exchange caters for collaboration too.

"For example," says Nair, "calendaring is a separate module with NTMail whereas it`s been standard in all versions of Exchange. As for the backup, we have enhanced the storage technology tremendously within Exchange. The statement of 10GB is probably true if each mailbox has approximately 100MB of data, and no compression/archival technology is enabled."