Microsoft Exchange 2010

Every internet service provider has free email hosting because it comes with your monthly subscription. Approximately three years ago, Google began free email hosting for businesses assuming online and other businesses would fade. This may not have been their intention, but it is what other businesses were worried about. Since established email hosting businesses saw this coming, they revolutionized their way of service. They offered more features, built their relationships with their customers, and many aligned themselves with each other. Revolutionizing the way they provided email hosting actually helped them when Google announced that their email hosting was free.

The main way that Google and other free email hosting sites are paid is by having advertising on businesses web pages. This is what keeps email free with these sites.
So the question is – is it worth paying for an email hosting service? Absolutely it is. Email hosting services offer businesses much more than the previous mentioned company. They offer spam blockers, php services, amongst other amazing features that are just too many to list. Good luck trying to get any customer service support from free email hosting services. Many businesses think that having ads on sites is a nuisance and unnecessary. When one pays for email hosting, more storage space is widely available just with a few dollars per month. As mentioned above, security is also better. There are things called spam bots that look for a number of things to destroy your website. One of theses things is email. I have an website with email hosting and I was ignoring my spam blocker because I didn’t think I would get as much spam as I did. When I ignored the spam, I received more than eighty ignorant spam emails per day. It became a hassle just deleting them, so finally I searched my email hosting and web hosting company trying to figure out a better way to block the spam.

Eventually, I found an anti-spam blocker in my control panel, downloaded it, and now I have been one hundred percent free of spam. I am able to control it. This almost backfired on me because there is a place that you set how many emails are allowed. I set it to one per email, then a friend emailed me twice, which went to my spam folder. Needless to say, this was easily resolved.

In truth, if you own a business and you don’t have a paid email hosting service, you will soon regret it. I could understand not paying for email hosting if it cost in excess of $40 per month. Almost all email hosting can be purchased for under ten dollars per month, so it is inexcusable if your a business and you don’t have email hosting. There are websites in abundance that offer email hosting, but you can get it right here, right now at our site. Make it worth your while as you see your business becoming more profitable with email hosting.

A recent study by technology company, CMSWire, found that many companies in the United States get email archives and backups mixed up.  As unbelievable as it sounds, the confusion is still rife, even years after the legislation came into force, and organizations are being caught out all the time.

For those who still don’t know the difference, a backup is when a copy is taken of a given media and stored elsewhere.  This is to provide disaster recovery should any disaster befall the building, the company or its infrastructure.  Every business should have a comprehensive backup process that is followed to the letter, but it is different to archiving.

An archive is designed to copy, store and manage data for the longer term.  It is designed to be a permanently separate, accessible silo where the data can be safely kept.  Ideally it would be sited somewhere other than the premises, in a purpose built facility where it is protected from all forms of harm such as flood and fire.

In the case of an email archive, for compliance, the email data is siphoned off the corporate email platform and formatted into a particular state.  It is then indexed, compressed and then stored safely somewhere else.  That storage should be secure, safe and resilient, so the client can access their data should the need arise.

A backup can run in conjunction with an archive, but are completely separate entities.  They should not be confused.  The only driver for a backup procedure is disaster recovery and damage limitation.  Archiving is necessary to satisfy a range of legal obligations that are enforced aggressively, as well as the retention of important information.

It isn’t only for E-discovery that archiving is a good idea.  Business depends a lot of email using it as the main means of communication both internal and external.  Often corporate communications, policy changes and even external contracts are communicated this way, and they are important for any business to retain for a period of time.

On paper it is an easy mistake to make.  Both processes make copies of stuff for retrieval later but only one will protect an organization from litigation if an E-discovery request comes their way.

While emails can be retrieved from a backup, it is a time-consuming and laborious task.  With no real indexing facility, finding emails may take a significant amount of time, especially in larger, communication heavy organizations.

An email archive makes it easier to follow email trails and the branches that can occur when mail is copied and forwarded to multiple recipients.  A thorough implementation should also comply with the relevant legislation and prevent any action being taken against the company for non-compliance.

Let’s set the record straight once and for all.  A backup policy is good methodology, but entirely optional.  Email archiving is not.  It is mandatory and specified in more than a few laws.  Ever since those very high profile corporate scandal cases, every business has had to comply with a set of stringent compliance laws that demands an effective trail be left with any documentation of any kind.

November 10, 2009 09:13 AM Eastern Time

CARY, N.C. Global Knowledge today announced the availability of Configuring, Managing, and Troubleshooting Microsoft Exchange Server 2010, a five-day Microsoft Exchange Server 2010 course in which students will learn to install and manage a Microsoft Exchange Server 2010 network of servers and explore critical new features of Microsoft Exchange Server 2010 from a real-world perspective.

In the hands-on Microsoft Exchange Server 2010 training course, students will learn to deploy Exchange Server 2010 servers in various roles, manage message transport, and plan and implement a disaster recovery solution. Students will learn to integrate Microsoft Exchange Server 2010 into an existing Exchange 2003 or Exchange 2007 environment, and they will learn to configure the Unified Messaging server role and Unified Messaging components.

Microsoft Exchange Server 2010 training prerequisites include fundamental knowledge of network and firewall technologies, experience with Microsoft Windows Server 2003 and 2008 operating systems, experience managing backup and restore on Windows Servers, and experience using Windows management, monitoring, networking, and troubleshooting tools.

Ideal candidates for the new Microsoft Exchange Server 2010 course include those aspiring to be enterprise-level messaging administrators, IT generalists and help desk professionals, and IT professionals with at least three years of experience, typically in network administration, help desk, or system administration.

Configuring, Managing, and Troubleshooting Microsoft Exchange Server 2010 is available in Global Knowledge classrooms and as a private, on-site course that can be tailored to the needs of your organization, and it is eligible for purchase using Microsoft Software Assurance Training Vouchers (SATVs). Learn more about Configuring, Managing, and Troubleshooting Microsoft Exchange Server 2010, redeeming SATVs for Microsoft training, and the complete Microsoft training curriculum Global Knowledge offers at www.globalknowledge.com.

About Global Knowledge

Global Knowledge is the worldwide leader in IT and business skills training, with more than 1,200 courses that span foundational and specialized training and certifications. Our core training is focused on Cisco, Microsoft, Nortel, VMware, Red Hat, business process improvement, and leadership development. We deliver via training centers, private facilities, and the Internet, enabling our customers to choose when, where, and how they want to receive training programs and learning services.

Founded in 1995, Global Knowledge employs more than 1,300 people worldwide and is headquartered in Cary, N.C. The company is owned by New York-based investment firm Welsh, Carson, Anderson, and Stowe. Learn more at www.globalknowledge.com.
Contacts

Global Knowledge
Nancy Enloe, Director, Marketing Communications, 919-460-3267,
nancy.enloe@globalknowledge.com

Microsoft Monday shipped the final release of Exchange 2010, ushering in not so much the latest version of its messaging server as the first updated piece of its unified communications and collaboration platform.

The release was no surprise, given the fact that last month Microsoft released the software to manufacturing — the so-called RTM — and said it would ship Monday as part of the agenda at its annual TechEd Europe conference.

Review: Best and worst of Exchange 2010

Next year, Microsoft will update SharePoint Server and Office Communications Server (OCS) to the 2010 moniker. The server duo along with Exchange forms a foundation for Microsoft’s unified communication platform. SharePoint 2010 and OCS 2010 are expected to ship in May or June of next year, although Microsoft has not released an official ship date.

“We are very much a Microsoft shop, and it is because of that integration,” says George Hamin, director of e-business and information systems for Subaru Canada. The company is fully deployed on Exchange 2010 and it also runs OCS, SharePoint, Microsoft’s System Center Operations Manager and a laundry list of other Microsoft software. “I have tried in the past using third-party products and tried to integrate it all. Our previous phone system had it but their concept of unified messaging was unified to the Outlook client and not to the Exchange server. So voice mail did not come through to your cell phone, voice mail was not available on the Outlook Web Access portal. So it was not true unified messaging. There was no concept of presence.”

In the long run, Hamin like others sees e-mail not so much as a separate entity but part of a larger platform. Monday, Microsoft focused on e-mail, but three weeks ago the focus was on SharePoint 2010 during the annual conference around that server software. And next week, as part of its annual Professional Developer’s Conference, developers will be brought into the equation.

The Exchange, OCS, SharePoint trio of servers also forms the core of Microsoft’s Business Productivity Online Suite, a set of hosted services, including LiveMeeting, that can be used separately or together.

The suite also has a set of companion security tools as part of the Forefront lineup. On Monday, Microsoft released Forefront Protection 2010 for Exchange Server, an online messaging security service. SharePoint and OCS will get similar tools.

One of the points Microsoft emphasizes with Exchange is that its architecture supports both online and on-premises deployments, and company officials say that Exchange 2010 is available as the foundation of its Exchange Online service with some limitations.

“We won’t have flexibility to run custom code for a single tenant,” says Rajesh Jha, senior vice president for Exchange. “We have a flavor or Exchange Online services called Exchange Dedicated service and it is a single tenant model and you can have custom code. “The Exchange 2010 server released Monday is a 64-bit only server that includes new storage and deployment options, enhanced in-box management capabilities, built-in e-mail archiving, new database clustering, additional hardware options and a revamped Outlook Web Access client.

Microsoft Corp. released Exchange 2010 this week with improved email archiving, compliance, and high availability features.

Despite the improvements, some storage pros and analysts are taking a wait-and-see approach to the new features and are leery of an approach that doesn’t allow for tiered storage.

Rajesh Jha, Microsoft corporate vice president for Exchange, says Microsoft optimized the way the email application performs I/O to disk. He says by updating algorithms and “smoothing out” I/O patterns, Microsoft has improved I/O performance tenfold between Exchange 2003 and Exchange 2010. “I/O used to be bursty, but we smoothed it out so that read and write patterns were more consistent,” Jha said.

Like Exchange 2007 and other Microsoft applications launched in recent years, Exchange 2010 also supports a 64-bit operating system and more memory than in previous versions. Microsoft contends the improvements let customers run Exchange 2010 on SATA disks while keeping mailboxes archived for legal compliance within the application, rather than moving messages out of the primary Exchange Store for archiving using third-party products.

“Archive data tends to take up a lot of storage but be less I/O intensive, and ‘hot’ active data tends to be more I/O intensive but take up less storage,” Jha said. “So it may be more cost-effective to keep both archive and the primary mailbox together in the Exchange database.”

The new archiving features were designed in response to customers who don’t want to manage a separate repository of .pst archive files for users. “A lot of organizations have a lot of psts,” Jha said. “That has two main disadvantages – it can be difficult to search across those files for discovery, and they may be locked into a single machine. Users can now move psts to the Exchange server, and end users can access them from anywhere online.”

However, Exchange 2010 doesn’t provide offline access to a personal archive, a feature offered by email archiving products such as Mimosa’s NearPoint and Symantec Corp.’s Enterprise Vault. Exchange 2010 doesn’t automatically download the archive into end users’ Outlook when they sign on, which Jha says can lighten the load on the desktop.

Simplified failover for high availability

Microsoft also moved high availability and failover within the primary application for Exchange 2010.

Exchange 2007 offered three types of native replication: local continuous replication (LCR), cluster continuous replication (CCR), and standby continuous replication (SCR), and customers could set them up to provide high availability and failover. The problem, as Microsoft’s release notes put it, was that “management of an Exchange 2007 high availability solution required administrators to master some clustering concepts, such as the concept of moving network identities and managing cluster resources. In addition, when troubleshooting issues related to a clustered mailbox server, administrators had to use Exchange tools and cluster tools to review and correlate logs and events from two different sources: one from Exchange and one from the cluster.”

Exchange 2010 now offers Data Availability Groups (DAG) in place of LCR and CCR. The DAG feature performs mailbox and database-level failover rather than server-level failover, consolidates multiple cluster services into one management console, automates failover operations, and allows up to 16 copies of data.

Storage industry experts skeptical

Ingram Leedy, managing partner for Exchange service provider Elephant Outlook, said he’s been part of Microsoft’s Technical Adoption Program (TAP) for Exchange 2010 and plans to put archiving and DAG into production as soon as possible.

“Not having to deal with third-party software makes things simpler for us,” said Leedy, who also uses Microsoft’s Data Protection Manager (DPM). “Clients don’t want to have to deal with psts—it’s just one more place for data that they don’t have control over.”

Leedy said he’s also considering using a combination of Exchange 2010’s improved data dumpster and DAGs to reduce point-in-time backups. “We’re starting to consider whether we need DPM,” he said. “We can make backup copies using CCR now, and the concept of a backupless environment could save money and resources while giving users what they want, which is not to have to delete anything from their inbox.”

Despite the archiving improvements, Exchange 2010 doesn’t support tiered storage for moving archive mailboxes to another database. A secondary archive mailbox must reside on the same disk as the primary mailbox database. Ed Sitz, IT manager at Med James Inc., a Shawnee Mission, Kans.-based management company, said he would like to see Microsoft offer a native archiving tool he could use to replace his current instance of Mimosa NearPoint. He says his users aren’t comfortable with needing a separate interface and product to search mailbox archives.

“It’s not that I don’t like Mimosa, it’s that my end users don’t like it,” Sitz said. “From my standpoint, it’s fine, but we’ve installed Exchange 2010 in our test environment and are looking into whether it would satisfy the users better.”

That said, the lack of support for tiered storage with Exchange 2010 archiving gives Sitz pause. “One benefit of Mimosa [being on separate storage] is the fact that it can be used as a failover in case our Exchange server or information store is corrupted or crashes,” Sitz said. “I would have to read more on 2010’s recovery from such an event, but…it could impact our decision.”

Sitz said his organization already has about 1 TB of email already archived with NearPoint, and it would be no small feat to migrate that back into Exchange 2010.

Jha said Microsoft is aware that customers want tiered storage support. “We definitely have received that feedback and we are looking into it.”

David Stevens, storage manager for computing services at Carnegie Mellon University, said there are already ways to integrate data retention policies for Exchange to cut back on Exchange data backup. “We store email on backups for three weeks and three weeks only,” he said. Users can choose to retain data as long as they want inside their primary mailboxes, “but if they delete it, in three weeks and one day it’s gone for good.”

Others just don’t need a new email archiving vendor. “We’re considering upgrading but not for archiving,” said Derek Kruger, IT and communications supervisor for the City of Safford, Ariz. Kruger already uses third-party archiving products from Tarmin Technologies for files and Barracuda Networks for email. “If I hadn’t signed up for Barracuda’s service six months ago I might be looking into it.”

Enterprise Strategy Group analyst Brian Babineau wonders if performing so many services within a production Exchange application would appeal to most enterprise users. “The question for users is how much processing do you want to stuff into Exchange?” he said. “Most users would never do this with another production database like Oracle, but Microsoft is saying to try it, and they’ll simplify this world for you.”

Microsoft has announced the Microsoft Exchange Server 2010 is now available worldwide, and the software giant believes that despite the economy, forces are promoting significant customer adoption, in much the same way that they believe forces favor a higher-than normal commercial adoption of the new Windows 7 OS.

“We are seeing interest strong across all industries, with education perhaps higher than average,” said Tim Hickernell, Associate Lead Research Analyst, Info-Tech Research Group. “Most of the interest in larger systems like email upgrades are due to budget planning. We are seeing a tremendous increase in interest in Exchange upgrades.”

A key reason for this is that many customers are still using Exchange 2003. Hickernell said that about 75 percent of their clients are Exchange users, and of those, about 75 percent are still using Exchange 2003, having never upgraded to Exchange 2007 because Exchange 2003 was a popular, stable platform.

“2003 is a sunset technology now,” Hickernell said. ” IT is very reluctant to rock the boat, but even though 2003 has been strong, we believe our customers will have significant upgrades in the next 6-12 months. I expect movement within 2010 sometime because of interest in budgeting for email platform upgrades in 2010.”

Microsoft is touting the practical reasons to switch, saying Exchange Server 2010 customers are reporting cost savings of up to 70 percent, because of a simplified high-availability model and support for lower-cost storage.

“Exchange Server 2010 has a lot of new features in many different areas,” said Andy Papadopoulos, President, LegendCorp, a Toronto-based Microsoft Gold Certified partner. “Storage is still being purchased, even in a down economy, so putting some of that storage on less expensive devices is important, and this will save them money.”

Info-Tech’s Hickernell said the ability to use cheaper storage was tops on their’ clients lists of the new features.

“The greatest interest so far in Exchange is the option for far less expensive storage in the new architecture. Next is the archiving option. After that is performance and higher availability capabilities.”

The archiving and high availability features were important to one customer, the Phaeton Automotive Group

“We had been running last 2-3 years on Google Apps, and we switched because of the ease of management,” said Jonathan Pisarczyk, Information Systems Group Manager, Phaeton Automotive Group. “We liked Exchange 2010 because of the archiving and high availability. Those were our biggest problems before. We have 300 people on the system right now and it’s working flawlessly so far.”

George Hamin, eBusiness Manager, Subaru Canada, said that Subaru was already on Exchange 2007 so the argument for them to move to 2010 wasn’t as clear-cut as for those customers on Exchange 2003.

For us, the low cost beta disks and archiving were important,” Hamin said. “Another big thing is the clustering which let us turn our Montreal office into a high availability center. There’s lots in there from a cost savings point of view.”

The 2010 server’s efficiencies also encourage further cost savings in consolidation and virtualization, Papadopolous added.

“With Exchange Server 2010 we can handle 70 percent more users than on 2007, so it’s good for consolidation,” he said. “Putting a lot more users on servers also lets them think about consolidating their environment.”

“Clients want a reduction in third party bolt-ons to Exchange, which add cost and complexity, so the new features meet a need, Papadopoulos added. “The customer feedback is that moving parts must come down. They need to simplify their environment because they have less people to run things. And they want the same experience on mobile. They don’t want to deal with VPN any more.”

Another attractive feature is a universal inbox that delivers e-mail, voice mail, instant messaging and text messaging across virtually any device, and which Microsoft says delivers productivity gains of more than 20 percent.

“The unified messaging component is attractive because many clients have issues with voice mail capacity, and are looking to upgrade.” Papadopolous said. “With 2010, some are willing to give their voice mail to Exchange.

Subaru Canada’s Hamin also praised the stability of the new platform.

“From a stability point of view, this is one of the best Microsoft releases I’ve seen to date,” he said. “There was no need to wait for SP1, which IT managers typically wait for.”

Exchange Server 2010 and Forefront Protection 2010 for Exchange, which helps Exchange Server customers further safeguard business information and which was announced at the same time, are available now for trial at http://www.thenewefficiency.com/. The community technology preview for SQL Server 2008 R2 will be available for download at http://www.microsoft.com/sqlserver/2008/en/us/R2.aspx.

You may now buy Exchange 2010!

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

BERLIN, Nov. 9 / Today at the Microsoft Tech-Ed Europe 2009 conference in Germany, Microsoft Business Division President Stephen Elop announced that Microsoft Exchange Server 2010 is now available worldwide to help businesses reduce costs, protect communications and delight e-mail users. Along with Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008 R2, Exchange Server 2010 is part of a generation of solutions designed for increased business productivity and cost savings.

In today’s challenging economic environment, innovative use of new information technologies can result in improved operational efficiency and reduced costs. The combination of cost savings coupled with improved productivity and innovation is defined as “the New Efficiency.”

Elop also announced the release of Forefront Protection 2010 for Exchange Server, which helps Exchange Server customers further safeguard business information.

“Exchange Server 2010 customers are already reporting cost savings of up to 70 percent thanks to a simplified high-availability model and support for lower-cost storage. Customers are also seeing productivity gains of more than 20 percent with a universal inbox that delivers e-mail, voice mail, instant messaging and text messaging consistently across virtually any device,” Elop said. “Together with Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008 R2, the combined cost savings and improved productivity helps customers generate long-term business success.”

According to a commissioned study of technology early adopters conducted by Forrester Consulting on behalf of Microsoft Corp., a customer can see a payback period of less than six months when upgrading to either Exchange Server 2010* or Windows Server 2008 R2.**

Customers such as Bank of America Corp., Carnival Cruise Line, Global Crossing, Lifetime Products, Morgan Keegan & Co. Inc., NEC Philips, Subaru Canada Inc. and Telekom Austria Group are deploying Exchange Server 2010 and report impressive results with the new server.

“We have increased storage eightfold at 25 percent of the cost with Exchange Server 2010 and our employees are seeing a reduction of unwanted e-mail by more than 70 percent, freeing us up to focus on more important client issues,” said Steve Derbyshire, operations director, NEC Philips.

Organizations including Automatic Data Processing Inc., BMW, Baker Tilly, the City of Miami, Energizer, Getronics and Pella Corp. are deploying Windows 7 and report gains in efficiency for both business users and IT. Customers report improved user productivity and easier information access, reduced costs with streamlined management, and reduced risk through better security and increased desktop control. Supporting detail is available in recent total cost of ownership studies and analyst survey reports at http://www.microsoft.com/windows/enterprise/products/windows-7/default.aspx.

Businesses are seeing equally significant results from Windows Server 2008 R2, with customers including Continental Airlines Inc. (U.S.), Chester Zoo (U.K.), Combell Group NV (Belgium), FinPro (Finland), Wacom Europe GmbH (Germany) and Wortell (Netherlands) noting cost savings through server consolidation, reduced power consumption and improved service levels.

“With Windows Server 2008 R2, we’ve been able to dramatically reduce costs in our IT infrastructure while simplifying management,” said Phil Morris, IT manager, North England Zoological Society/Chester Zoo. “By virtualizing our environment with Windows Server 2008 R2 Hyper-V, we have reduced the number of servers in our environment by 80 percent while maintaining the high availability our retail staff, researchers and management team need.”

“Windows Server 2008 R2 brings many efficiencies to our customers, including enabling new virtualization scenarios,” said Bill Laing, corporate vice president for the Windows Server and Solutions Division at Microsoft. “We’ve added the next generation of hypervisor and the new ability to perform Live Migration of virtual machines. Many customers are already seeing tangible results since deploying Windows Server 2008 R2 with Hyper-V.”

Elop said more than 45,000 partners are trained on Windows Server 2008 R2 and Exchange Server 2010, with several partners announcing new services and solutions today, including Advanced Micro Devices Inc., Avanade, Dell Inc., EMC Corp., Kaspersky Lab, Symantec Corp. and Unisys Corp.

Exchange Server 2010 and Forefront Protection 2010 for Exchange are available now for trial at http://www.thenewefficiency.com, along with more information about Windows 7, Windows Server 2008 R2 and partner solutions.

Ongoing Commitment to Developers and IT Professionals
As part of Microsoft’s ongoing commitment to providing developers and IT professionals with the technology to drive productivity gains within their organizations, the following announcements also were also made today at Tech-Ed Europe 2009.

• The community technology preview for SQL Server 2008 R2 will be available for download at http://www.microsoft.com/sqlserver/2008/en/us/R2.aspx.
• For use in building multilanguage Web sites and client applications, Microsoft Translator widgets and APIs are now in beta. Many European languages are now supported by Microsoft Translator. Additional details can be found at http://go.microsoft.com/?linkid=9694254.
• Microsoft’s Trustworthy Computing Group will release new guidance that extends the full Security Development Lifecycle process to a wider external software developer audience, by enabling developers using the Agile development model to integrate Microsoft’s SDL processes, tools and technologies directly into their software development environments, helping to ensure their applications are secure and their customers have a safer, more trusted computing experience.

Virtual Tech-Ed Europe Participation
There are multiple ways for those not in attendance to experience Tech-Ed Europe 2009.

• Visit the Tech-Ed global pressroom at http://www.microsoft.com/presspass/events/teched/default.mspx for additional details regarding all announcements made at Tech-Ed Europe 2009.
• View the live stream of the executive keynote address from the Tech-Ed 2009 global pressroom today at 3:30 p.m. CET/6:30 a.m. PST.
• Participate in the post-keynote webcast Q&A today at 5 p.m. CET/8 a.m. PST, immediately following the executive keynote address. Submit questions to the executive panel by visiting the Tech-Ed global pressroom.

Founded in 1975, Microsoft (Nasdaq: MSFT) is the worldwide leader in software, services and solutions that help people and businesses realize their full potential.

* Source: Forrester Consulting: “The Total Economic Impact of Microsoft Exchange 2010,” November 2009.
** Source: Forrester Consulting: “The Total Economic Impact of Windows Server 2008 R2,” November 2009.

This information is about pre-release software and therefore is subject to change. It is provided without warranty of any kind, express or implied