MS Exchange Blog

Kudos to the Exchange Documentation team

If you spend a lot of time in Microsoft Exchange documentation, you may appreciate the quality of coverage and organization. Or you may not. But if you really want to appreciate what the Exchange team has done over the last 5 years in terms of providing coherent, relevant information at various levels for Exchange Server 2003, 2007 and 2010, spend some time with the documentation of their competitors.

If you have to wander into the website of a competitor and look something up, you may find it easily or it may take awhile. I don't mean looking up the odd question. If you spend a good week in their documentation, whether it is Lotus (Domino), Novell (Groupwise), or Yahoo! (Zimbra), or others, you will most likely garner a greater appreciation of what Microsoft has accomplished for Exchange Server. From the Exchange Server Library to the marketing-free technical Exchange team blog, I find the quality of content exceeds what I see elsewhere in the market.

As an example, recent searches within the Lotus website returned promising results; however, selecting several of those sites resulted in 404s. Clicking the Search button within the online help system for Lotus Domino and Notes 8.5 in either Firefox or Internet Explorer glosses over the search page and returns the page on How to Search. Searching the product infocenter for Domino and Notes 8.5 creates a minor usability glitch - duplicate results by title. In actuality, they are separate results for versions 8.0 and 8.5, but there is no immediate identification in the search results as shown in the screenshot.

These are just a few examples off the top of my head. In practice the frustration was even more profound. And I don't mean to just pick on Lotus as they are just one of the offenders.

William Lefkovics

Free MSPress OCS R2 eBooks (until 6/24)

Microsoft Press in hono(u)r of their 25th anniversary have offered a couple of titles in their OCS line as free downloads. You still have to register with a Microsoft Passport account. This offer is available until June 24th only.

• Programming for Unified Communications with Microsoft Office Communications Server 2007 R2

• Microsoft Office Communications Server 2007 R2 Resource Kit

William Lefkovics

 

Third Party Webinars

There is a significant market of third party products in support of Microsoft Exchange Server. Some of these offer free webcasts outlining their products or the need for their products. Two such companies are Lucid8 and Mimosa Systems.

Lucid8 has a webinar schedule for marketing their recovery and discovery product line.

Mimosa Systems has an online events schedule page also.  For Mimosa, some events are industry seminars, while others are product webcasts and even Tech Chats.

I don't endorse either of these companies, but for some a good webcast helps to decide whether a company's offerings may fit your business requirements.

William Lefkovics

Follow us on Twitter. Or not.

I am going to incorporate changes to the blog with a Twitter feed to see how practical and beneficial that might be. We are set up as twitter.com/msexchangeblog.  I see a lot of tweets directing people to a new blogpost. I will avoid the endless loop where the blogpost you are directed to advises of a new Twitter tweet.

The company that owns this blog content has been on Twitter for awhile now: twitter.com/mojavemedia.

William Lefkovics

Exchange 2010 Webcasts in June 2009

There are a great many webcasts for Exchange 2010 coming in June 2009:

TechNet Webcast: Exchange 2010 High Availability (Level 300)

Monday, June 1, 2009

9:00 A.M.–10:00 A.M. Pacific Time

TechNet Webcast: Exchange 2010 Overview (Level 200)

Wednesday, June 3, 2009

9:00 A.M.–10:00 A.M. Pacific Time

TechNet Webcast: Forefront code name “Stirling” - The next generation of Forefront Security for Exchange Server (Level 200)

Thursday, June 4, 2009

1:00 P.M.–2:00 P.M. Pacific Time

TechNet Webcast: Exchange 2010 Management Tools (Level 300)

Monday, June 8, 2009

1:00 P.M.–2:00 P.M. Pacific Time

TechNet Webcast: Microsoft Exchange Hosted Filtering is now Forefront Online Security for Exchange (Level 200)

Tuesday, June 9, 2009

1:00 P.M.–2:00 P.M. Pacific Time

TechNet Webcast: Exchange 2010 Archiving and Retention (Level 300)

Wednesday, June 10, 2009

9:00 A.M.–10:00 A.M. Pacific Time

TechNet Webcast: Exchange 2010 Outlook Web Access (Level 200)

Monday, June 15, 2009

9:00 A.M.–10:00 A.M. Pacific Time

TechNet Webcast: Exchange 2010 Architecture (Level 300)

Wednesday, June 17, 2009

9:00 A.M.–10:00 A.M. Pacific Time

TechNet Webcast: Federation in Exchange 2010 (Level 300)

Monday, June 22, 2009

9:00 A.M.–10:00 A.M. Pacific Time

TechNet Webcast: Exchange 2010 Voice Mail enabled by Unified Messaging (Level 300)

Wednesday, June 24, 2009

9:00 A.M.–10:00 A.M. Pacific Time

TechNet Webcast: Exchange 2010 Information Protection and Control (Level 300)

Monday, June 29, 2009

9:00 A.M.–10:00 A.M. Pacific Time

TechNet Webcast: Exchange 2010 Transition and Deployment (Level 300)

Wednesday, July 1, 2009

9:00 A.M.–10:00 A.M. Pacific Time

These and more webcasts can be found here.

William Lefkovics

Lotus Notes / Exchange Marketing Twitter Fight

Marketing Technologists/Evangelists are using Twitter effectively. But for Ed Brill of IBM and Brandon Hoff of Microsoft, it seems like a lot of their efforts cancel each other out, unless you add up the numbers. Brandon reports more migrations to Exchange, like Blockbuster's 10,000 user migration to Exchange Online. Brandon also mentions recently that Quest software has sold 200,000 user licenses for its Note to Exchange Migrator application during the first quarter of 2009.

Here are a couple of sample entries for the two:

edbrill Just got word of a 1500 user migration from Microsoft Exchange to Notes/Domino. IBM better on TCO, upfront costs, platform support. #fb
Tue, May 19 12:54:30 from web

brandonhoff Another big Notes shop switching to #Exchange. Win just landed in my inbox. Over 8k more users coming to Exchange! Outstanding!
Wed, May 20 14:21:18 from twhirl

William Lefkovics

MFCMAPI 6.0.0.1013 Released

The May 2009 update for MFCMAPI (MDBVU32 all grown up) has been released on Codeplex. This is now version 6.0.0.1013. Recently, Stephen Griffin has been consistently updating MFCMAPI every two months.

William Lefkovics

Red Gate Software Releases Exchange Archiver

Red Gate Software, known for their SQL Server tools, has announced the release Exchange Server Archiver. Red Gate focussed on ease of use for their product.

If you are considering a third party archive solution, add Exchange Archiver to your research list. They do offer a 30 day free trial.

William Lefkovics

Rollup 8 for Exchange 2007 SP1 Released

Microsoft has released Rollup 8 for Exchange 2007 Service Pack 1. The list of issues addressed by RU8 can be found in Microsoft KB 968012.

I like the 'Rollup' program. It makes it easier to determine where your Exchange servers are in terms of patching.

William Lefkovics

Signup for the Office 2010 Preview

Recently Microsoft created a teaser site to sign up for the Office 2010 beta. While marketing is an essential element of such software releases, there is a frustrating aspect (not just the Silverlight requirement) to this. With the Exchange 2010 beta available to testers since mid-April, it would have been nice to test Outlook 2010 with Exchange. They go hand in hand really.

It is not clear whether the 'movie' is yet to come. Surely, the little video snippet is not it. The only thing missing from that basic effort is the green screen indicating that "This preview is suitable for all audiences".

William Lefkovics

Novell Introduces GroupWise Competitive Migration Offer

I know. I know. You're thinking GroupWise still exists? Novell has announced a competitive migration offer for companies with Exchange, Lotus Notes and other messaging solutions.

Novell today announced a new promotion designed to help organizations move to Novell GroupWise 8 at a significantly reduced cost. Organizations currently using a competitor's messaging platform can now exchange each existing competitor license for a free GroupWise 8 license. Customer who take advantage of this offer for their integrated collaboration environment will only be required to commit to one year of maintenance support for each user seat.

Novell is offering their GroupWise 8 seats for free (matching the number of competitor seats in use) but will require an annual maintenance fee for the seats of $36/user. That is a compelling offer, but in the end, it is still GroupWise.

William Lefkovics

Exchange Server 2010 Beta Released

The worst kept secret in the E14 development phase was the intended name: Exchange Server 2010 after leaks to WSUS and people (me included) accidentally anticipating the name long before it was known.

Microsoft has finally released an Exchange 2010 beta for administrators for review.

I can hardly wait for Exchange Server 2012.  Oops.

William Lefkovics

E14 Ignite Sessions

Last week in Dallas and this week in Orlando, Microsoft is hosting Exchange 14 Ignite training. These are introductory but in depth training for the next version of Exchange Server.

If I wasn't in Interact 2009 in Boston, I would be in Orlando. Thankfully, I am not. Boston is a far better place to have a conference. :) There are E14 sessions in Interact 2009 as well.

William Lefkovics

Attending Interact 2009 in Boston, MA

Interact 2009 will be a microconference this year after a fantastic inaugural effort in San Diego in the Spring of 2008. This year, Interact will be held Tuesday, April 14, 2009, simultaneously in Redmond, WA, Boston, MA, and Reading, UK. I will be attending the conference in Boston.

In addition, the conference will be held online as a virtual conference. I think you have to check out the site to find out Live Meeting logistics, though. You can follow Interact 2009 on Twitter.

William Lefkovics

Google Partners Exchange Comparison Document

There are some poorly compiled marketing reports out there for CIOs to read in their in-flight magazines. This new 7 Keys to Comparing Google Apps Premier Edition with Microsoft Exchange Server 2003/2007 report misses the mark by so much, it cannot even pretend it isn't marketing crap. (This document is a .pdf file.)

1) No, client software is not 'required' to run Exchange. Some companies do use OWA in the browser as their only client.

2) No, on premise hardware is not required. There are hosted Exchange solutions out there. Why does Google never seem to compare itself to other hosted offerings?

3) What is the Google offline experience like? Non-existent perhaps?

Those are just a few thoughts. This document was a frustrating read. I understand the great benefits and significant shortcomings that accompany a move to a hosted messaging solution, including GMail through Google Apps Premier. I understand that they need to attack the biggest fish in the sea of messaging. Chris posted some information on GMail as a hosted option for Exchange earlier.

In their comparison chart, it suggests that Exchange 2003 and 2007 come with an Instant Messaging solution, which they do not. These comparisons also tend to call things even because they both offer 'calendars' or 'contacts'. Well, almost all messaging solutions have 'calendar' functionality and Google's calendar options and features are not in the same level as that of Exchange Server or Lotus Domino or Zimbra or most other solutions with an on-premise option for that matter.

I think Google spent more effort on April Fools Day articles.

William Lefkovics

Microsoft Exchange Labcasts for April

There is a series of Labcasts for Exchange Server 2007 where you can get a feel of the application. The first part was actually presented on March 26, 2009 and is no longer available. 

TechNet Labcast: Exchange Server 2007 Labcast (Part 1 of 4) (Level 200)
Thursday, March 26, 2009
11:00 A.M.-3:00 P.M. Pacific Time

These are not 60 minute webcasts where you sit and absorb. The labcasts are interactive, and as such do not have unlimited attendance.  Part 2 of the series is already booked up. 

TechNet Labcast: Exchange Server 2007 Labcast Series (Part 2 of 4) (Level 200)
Thursday, April 2, 2009
11:00 A.M.-3:00 P.M. Pacific Time

Parts 3 and 4 still have available spots as of this posting.

TechNet Labcast: Exchange Server 2007 Labcast Series (Part 3 of 4) (Level 200)
Thursday, April 9, 2009
11:00 A.M.-3:00 P.M. Pacific Time

TechNet Labcast: Exchange Server 2007 Labcast Series (Part 4 of 4) (Level 200)
Thursday, April 16, 2009
11:00 A.M.-3:00 P.M. Pacific Time

There are numerous 'on-demand' labcasts that do not have an instructor, but do give you 90 minutes of face-time with Exchange Server.

William Lefkovics

Exchange 2007 SP1 RU7 Released

Microsoft has released RU7 for Exchange 2007 SP1. MS KB 960384 outlines about 50 issues that this cumulative update fixes on an Exchange 2007 server with SP1 already installed. RU7 for Exchange 2007 SP1 can be downloaded here.

William Lefkovics

Exchange Connections - Orlando 2009

Next week is the semi-anual Connections conferences. Exchange Connections is just one segment of the series under one of two umbrellas - DevConnections and WinConnections.

Exchange Connections runs as part of Windows Connections from March 15-18, 2009 at the Hyatt Grand Cypress in Orlando, FL.

This is the third time I will be presenting at Exchange Connections in Orlando. I keep getting better, but there is still a long way to go.

I will be attempting the following sessions:

EXC12: When Performance is a Problem, It’s Good to Have a PAL Around
EXC13: Tools, Tools, Tools! No. Not Users. The Exchange 2007 Management Toolbox
EXC14: Exchange Server 2007 Security Best Practices

William Lefkovics

Thinking about trying the Exchange Masters Certification?

Here is a list of pre-reading to do prior to attending training for the Microsoft Certified Master (MCM) for Exchange 2007. Basically, you need to commit everything in Technet pertaining to Exchange 2007 and then some. There are a couple of blogs as well, including the excellent Exchange Team blog and Ross Smith IV's Exchange Storage Calculator.

It's all good reading even if you are not going to attempt the MCM for Exchange 2007.

William Lefkovics

Article: Exchange alternatives: Pros and cons

A recent article at Network World suggests that the alternatives may not be compelling enough to 'yank' out Exchange Server.

 

This article claims that the six Exchange alternatives tested are ok, but not enough to pull out Exchange. No problem there.  But what about the market that is trying to decide whether to move TO Exchange or some other alternative? I would have liked to have seen Exchange as part of the testing and finish within the same grading system they used for the six products tested. I also would have liked to have seen others included, such as IMail, Axigen, Zarafa, Cisco PostPath and Icewarp's Merak. The focus seemed to be on SMB companies with the price comparison set at 100 users. Zimbra came in as ‘best of the rest’ which makes sense to me. 

 

Exchange Server is not the best answer for everyone, but it is a darn good answer for many.

 

William Lefkovics

Another Microsoft MVP Summit over

The MVP Summit is a highlight of the year for me.  This was my 6th summit, I think. The point in the product cycle for Exchange Server made this summit more valuable than most. I look forward to the next release, E14. One thing to take from the summit and that I can share with confidence is that Microsoft listens. They often are criticized for not doing so, but that is not justified. They listen. Oh, they may take what seems like forever to actually act on feedback, they do in fact listen. And I appreciate that.

The MVP Summits add faces, names, and handshakes to the big anonymous behemoth in Redmond at which we otherwise may toss expletives while emphatically shaking fists in the air. Those at Microsoft enlisted to organize the summits do a great job for the swag-o-philic MVPs that descend on Seattle every 12-18 months. And I appreciate that as well.

William Lefkovics

Microsoft Certified Master Team Blog

In January 2009, Microsoft added a new blog for the Microsoft Certified Master team. This blog is not specific to Exchange, but rather covers all of the MCM product programs as follows:

• Microsoft Certified Master: Windows Server 2008 - Directory
• Microsoft Certified Master: Exchange Server 2007
• Microsoft Certified Master: Office Communications Server 2007
• Microsoft Certified Master: SharePoint Server 2007
• Microsoft Certified Master: SQL Server 2008

William Lefkovics

Exchange 2007 SP1 RU6 Released with Critical Patch

Microsoft released Rollup 6 for Exchange 2007 Service Pack 1. This RU includes the critical patch for Exchange 2007 mentioned earlier. You can download RU6 from here, as explained in MS KB 959241.

The critical issue is described in MS KB 959239. Actually, that doesn't explain anything at all, except provide the (impressive) list of files that are updated to resolve this issue. The equivalent article for Exchange 2000 and Exchange 2003 is MS KB 959897. The issue is described in the security bulletin MS09-003. Memory Corruption Vulnerability through malicious OLE objects in TNEF attachments. (Die winmail.dat, die!)

If you are using the 32bit trial and testing version of Exchange 2007, there is still a patch for that as well as the production 64bit version.

William Lefkovics

Google Licenses ActiveSync

Most companies seem to license Microsoft's ActiveSync protocol in order to connect their mobility platform to Microsoft Exchange.

Google has licensed ActiveSync to connect Google Contacts and some Calendar objects to mobile phones. They are calling this GoogleSync and it is currently in beta. The 'push' technology inside GoogleSync is provided by Microsoft.

According to this article, this agreement between Microsoft and Google does not include using ActiveSync to connect Google's Android to Microsoft Exchange Server.

William Lefkovics

Critical Exchange Server Patch Coming Next Tuesday

According to their February 2009 Advanced Notification Bulletin, Microsoft will release several critical patches this coming Tuesday, February 10, 2009, including a long anticipated and rather embarassing one for SQL Server.

Of note is a critical patch for Exchange Server covering Exchange 2000, 2003 and 2007. The bulletin does mention that the Exchange Server will not need to be restarted. That might accelerate the adoption of the patch.

William Lefkovics

Office Communication Server 2007 R2 Virtual Launch

Today was the virtual launch of OCS 2007 R2 (I didn't see it - it required Silverlight). Office Communication Server 2007 is a critical component of Microsoft's unified communication strategy. Their press release is done as an interview with Intel and Sprint managers working with unified communication solutions in their respective companies.

For a list of technical resources for OCS 2007 R2 go here.

William Lefkovics

Entourage 2008 for Exchange Web Services Beta Released

Exchange Server 2007 introduces a set of web services (EWS) enabling access to Exchange from varied clients independent of platform. Microsoft has released a public beta of Entourage 2008 for Exchange Web Services - probably the first comprehensive client to use EWS. The private beta has been ongoing for a couple of months almost, but it is being opened to the public.

Entourage 2008 does use some EWS (Out of Office Assistant and Delegation functionality), but Entourage 2008 for EWS replaces WebDAV with web services. Exchange 2007 SP1 with RU4 or higher is the minimum requirement on the server side to participate in the beta.

Information about the beta is available from Microsoft's Mactopia site.

Exchange Web Services Links:

Exchange Web Services Architecture
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/aa579369.aspx

Exchange Web Services Reference
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb204119.aspx

William Lefkovics

Messaging and Collaboration Server Market Share and Trends

In an IBM press release last week, it was suggested that Lotus Notes/Domino has taken a bite out of Microsoft's market share in the corporate messaging arena. Maybe it was just to draw attention to this week's Lotusphere 2009 conference. Microsoft has replied with a press release done as an interview with their own David Scult, a General Manager in the Information Workers division, entitled Making Sense of the Messaging and Collaboration Market.

Lotus is still big in the enterprise market. As IBM indicates, Lotus Notes/Domino is used in over 50% of the largest 100 companies in the United States. Microsoft notes that Lotus was once in 2/3 of the Fortune 100, so 50% is not as impressive as it sounds. All the while, Yahoo!'s Zimbra Collaboration Suite claims to have sold over 20 millions client licenses over 30,000 companies.

The IBM article claims that Lotus has experienced solid growth for several quarters. That is believable certainly. Lotus Notes 8.x and Domino 8.x represent a great step forward, especially on the Notes side. The Notes client has drastically increased its usability. What is challenging to believe is that the gains that Lotus has experienced is somehow greater than the increases witnessed by Microsoft with Exchange Server.

Identifying software market share is not an exact science. It is a combination of vendor sales numbers, company surveys and some semi-informed analysis. Is there a guarantee that firms are being honest in answering surveys? When a company moves from one application to another, do the licenses no longer in use get deducted magically from the vendor's claimed total? Do the vendors share accurate sales information? Is market share based on number of user/client licenses? Number of companies that have invested in the product? Number of servers? What if we only count companies with more than 500 users?

Overall, the Exchange vs Notes market share debate seems more of a marketing public relations exercise than an accurate assessment of messaging solutions deployed in the market. It reminds me of the classic book "How to Lie With Statistics" by Darrell Huff (it should be part of the high school curriculum). Personally, when faced with a choice of products, I like vendors to focus more on the benefits of their own product and not maintain a primary marketing strategy of denigrating the competition.

Interestingly, the Microsoft Press Pass interview lists Coca-Cola Enterprises as an Exchange Server customer and the IBM press release boasts that the Coca-Cola Company is a Lotus Domino client. I wonder if those are the same?

William Lefkovics

"Exchange's lead over Notes actually 'getting bigger and bigger,' says Gartner"

"While IBM argued today that its Lotus Notes collaboration software was turning the tide against the market leader, Microsoft Corp.'s Exchange, a Gartner Inc. analyst said that's not the case.

 "I don't believe that in either revenue or user seat share, that IBM is closing the gap [with Microsoft]," Tom Austin, a Gartner analyst, told Computerworld today. "The gap is getting bigger and bigger." .. "

Read on...

Announcing Exchange 14 Video on TechNet

Microsoft's KC Lemson and Jim Lucey chat about Exchange Labs and Exchange 14 in a video on TechNet. The video, at just under 10 minutes, give a glimpse of the next version of Exchange with a demo of E14 OWA (Outlook Live).

The idea of reducing the per mailbox cost of operating Exchange is great for Enterprise customers that can benefit from server consolidation, but the same numbers do not trickle down to the 100 user, single server deployments. Smaller companies may see savings moving to a hosted service, for which Exchange 14 is to be more equipped to handle than previous versions. E14 has been developed from scratch as both a corporate application and a service-level product.

The Announcing Exchange 14 video is worth a view for some high level initial interest and probably the first video of some of the new OWA. At first, I was disappointed that it prompted me for the Silverlight plugin, but selecting the Download button reveals several different video formats to choose from.

William Lefkovics