By Greg DeMichillie [bio]
Posted: Feb. 19, 2007                            

The following an excerpt of a Research Report published by Directions on Microsoft, an independent research firm focused exclusively on Microsoft strategy & technology. More samples of our content, as well as a list of upcoming articles and reports are also available.

Free! Executive Summary

This report provides CIOs, solution architects, and partners with a comprehensive introduction to evaluating Exchange Server 2007 and Outlook 2007 and planning their deployment

Free! Introduction

Overview of the major areas of Exchange Server 2007 and Outlook 2007 feature improvements, including availability, regulatory compliance, unified messaging, cost of ownership, and mobility

Unified Messaging Advances Voice Mail

Exchange Server 2007 lets users access voice mail and incoming faxes from Outlook and can read e-mail messages to users over a standard phone, but it imposes additional licensing and other migration costs

Mobility, Spam Blocking, and Calendaring Enhancements

Exchange 2007 and its Outlook 2007 client contain mobile access, spam blocking, and calendaring improvements that should help increase end-user support for upgrading from earlier versions of Exchange

Other New Features in Outlook 2007

Outlook 2007 has some interesting new features, particularly a new interface and support for RSS and iCalendar data sources, that are independent of the type of mail server used

Driving Down Costs and Lessening IT Workloads

Exchange 2007 offers IT professionals in large organizations a slew of important new capabilities that should drive down costs while lessening IT workloads, but upgrading will be more expensive than with past versions

New Features Assist in Regulatory Compliance

Exchange 2007 comes with new tools that can 'shred' old messages and aid corporate compliance with document retention regulations, but it may stir resentment among end users

What's New in Exchange Development

Exchange 2007 offers a new developer platform that replaces a hodge-podge of APIs built on aging technologies with a new set built on Web services and the .NET Framework

Packaging, Licensing, and Pricing

Feature differences between the Standard and Enterprise Editions of Exchange Server 2007 as well as the Standard CAL and Enterprise CAL; pricing and other details for these licenses

Resources

Links and pointers to additional material about Exchange Server 2007 and Outlook 2007