Software Update: Microsoft Exchange Server 2010 Release Candidate

Microsoft has released the first release candidate of Exchange Server 2010. The developers at Microsoft are building on the code of Exchange Server 2007 and have made quite a few changes. Outlook Web Access has been renamed Outlook Live and can now be fully used with non-IE browsers. In addition, the options to offer high availability have been adjusted, so that SCC, LCR and SCR have been eliminated and from now on we look at the database level. For more information, we refer you to these pages at Microsoft. There is also a topic on our forum where this new member is discussed. The announcement of this release candidate on the Microsoft Exchange Team Blog looks like this:

Exchange Server 2010 Release Candidate Available Today!

Today, we’re happy to announce that Exchange Server 2010 Release Candidate is feature complete and available for download here.

Crystal Flores tracked me down with her roving cameraman to outline how Exchange Server 2010 delivers unmatched Inbox innovation to the enterprise to improve user productivity, and exceed IT requirements around ease of deployment, compliance and administration. Hope you enjoy watching!

When we shipped the first version of Exchange about fourteen years ago, IBM/Lotus dominated the space. According to a 2008 Ferris research report, Notes/Domino share has dwindled to a mere 10% in enterprises, while Exchange has grown to 65% market share across all organizations and continues to grow with more than 4.7M starting the switch to Exchange last year . In fact, Exchange is now approaching $2B in annual revenues. If Exchange were a standalone business, it would be the 9th largest software company in the world. We expect that momentum to accelerate with Exchange 2010, the most compelling version yet.

On the services front, Exchange Online is getting a great reception from customers and is now used by more than a million people. With Exchange 2010, we’ve broken new ground again. Exchange 2010 is currently being tested as a service by more than 10M people worldwide in the broadest server beta in Microsoft history. This is a testament to our long-standing commitment to bring rock solid, enterprise-ready products to market.

It doesn’t stop there. With Exchange 2010, people have an arsenal of new weapons to fight inbox overload. In fact, Basex have awarded Microsoft (for Exchange 2010) a Basex Excellence Award, aka the “Basey” award. Last week, on “Information Overload Day”, Basex presented the award to acknowledge the significant contributions Exchange 2010 makes to minimizing information overload – with features like MailTips and Ignore Conversation. We think is pretty exciting given the product isn’t even generally available yet.

All of that aside, I want to highlight a couple of interesting new things in the Release Candidate:

• Support for Windows Server 2008 and Windows Server 2008 R2: The Exchange Server 2010 Release Candidate is now supported on the 64-bit versions of the Windows Server 2008 and Windows Server 2008 R2.
• In place upgrade from Exchange Server 2010 Release Candidate to Exchange Server 2010 RTM: You can start planning and deploying your Exchange Server 2010 environment today knowing that it will be possible to perform an in place upgrade with the final version expected to be available later this year . You won’t need to reinstall your servers or reconfigure your Exchange settings once you have deployed the Release Candidate. This will save you time while allowing you to start evaluating the latest product capabilities now.
• Co-existence with Exchange Server 2007 and Exchange Server 2003: If your current environment is Exchange Server 2007 or Exchange Server 2003, Exchange Server 2010 Release Candidate is able co-exist with either of the two versions. This will enable you/your company to start planning your upgrade, test critical scenarios and experience the benefits of the latest version of the product. For Exchange Server 2007 co-existence, Service Pack 2 (SP2) is required, and will be available later this month.

For additional technical details, please visit “What’s new in Exchange 2010” on TechNet.

As always, let us know what you think!
~Michael Atalla