Commentary: Users, analysts: No Rush to adopt Exchange 2007

No Rush to adopt Exchange 2007

This was a solid and accurate article by Elizabeth Montalbano, of IDG News Service, which feeds into InfoWorld, ComputerWorld, and NetworkWorld around the globe.

It's almost a duplicate template to the December 27, 2006 article of the "After month, no rush to adopt Vista" she also wrote.

The reality is, although Exchange 2007 has its warts, many companies that we've talked to are seriously considering the move to Exchange 2007 in 2007. From talking with our customers, here are the top 10 (well, 11) reasons they are making the move:

  1. Still on Exchange 5.5 (MSFT support expired) or Exchange 2000 (MSFT support costs increased)
  2. Standardizing on Microsoft Platform (move from Notes, Novell)
  3. Complicated e-mail topology: seeking server consolidation
  4. Wanting Highly available E-mail solution or E-Mail Appliance
  5. Seeking a better Backup and Mailbox Recovery solution
  6. Higher Security
  7. Performance: eg. mailboxes are too large for Exchange 2003
  8. Advanced collaboration capabilities in Office, Sharepoint, Exchange
  9. New Unified Messaging Capabilities
  10. New Edge Services Capabilities
  11. Killer Outlook Web Access (OWA) functionality

There is added complexity in Exchange 2007 that confuses me as to why it exists --- for instance not supporting virtualization of some of the server roles --- but altogether the items above are motivating many of our customers to move to Exchange 2007, although they do see the advantages of a managed Exchange appliance to make the move seamless.

Keith McCall
CTO, Azaleos