Exchange Server 2007 boasts many new features and improved performance, and to make its case for the product, the company's marketing will home in on current messaging hot buttons, such as keeping mobile workers connected, easing the burden of regulatory compliance, and reducing server management costs. While Exchange 2007 will put Microsoft in competition with some partners, the company expects to create many opportunities for others. Partners who understand how the product is marketed will be in the best position to piggyback on Microsoft's marketing resources.

Target Markets for Exchange

Exchange 2007 aims at virtually every Microsoft market segment, and some of its most advanced features could appeal to small customers—for instance, the unified messaging component that puts e-mail, faxes, and voice mail in a single inbox may appeal to small organizations that lack or need to upgrade a voice-mail system.

In addition, numerous features aimed at mobile users could attract a significant audience in a fast-growing market. The number of enterprise mobile e-mail users was expected to double in 2006, and the worldwide population of mobile workers is expected to increase about 25% between 2006 and 2009, according to Strategy Analytics.

Exchange's main competitor is IBM's Lotus Notes/Domino, and the two companies are locked in a battle for dominance in which both are rapidly extending and upgrading their communications and collaboration platforms. Rather than trying to do everything with a single product, both have developed collections of integrated products: Microsoft's Exchange-SharePoint-Communication Server line competes with a comparable line of IBM products for e-mail, document sharing, portals, instant messaging, and other services. Market surveys vary in their estimates, and surveys that measure e-mail seats alone may not measure penetration of IBM's full collaboration line, but Microsoft cites surveys from Gartner Group that give Microsoft a 62% to 26% lead in the number of e-mail seats in large organizations, and a 47% to 41% lead in worldwide e-mail revenue.

In addition to attracting new customers or making competitive wins, Microsoft could also see many Exchange 2000 customers and most of the few remaining Exchange 5.5 customers migrate to Exchange 2007, since those products have left Mainstream support. A fall 2007 Radicati survey found that messaging software upgrades were the third-highest priority for businesses in 2006, and 83% of respondents are either upgrading or plan to do so within the next 18 months.

Exchange Marketing Opportunities

In marketing Exchange 2007, Microsoft will emphasize its existing strengths in e-mail and calendaring and will pitch a lineup of significant new features. Major marketing themes will touch on the following areas:

Messaging and collaboration platform. To better compete with the application strengths of Notes/Domino, Microsoft is positioning Exchange as part of a broader communications and collaboration server platform that includes not only Exchange but also SharePoint Server (also upgraded in 2007) for collaboration, and the upcoming Communication Server 2007, planned for release later in the year, for instant messaging and Web conferencing. Partners with both Exchange and SharePoint skills will be positioned well to exploit this campaign. Partners who make IP-based PBXs, routers, handsets, and other components of Voice over IP (VoIP) systems can focus on Exchange 2007's new voice-mail features and prepare customers to take advantage of VoIP features in Communication Server 2007.

Mobility. An "Anywhere Access" marketing theme emphasizes improvements in remote access to Exchange mail systems through a variety of mobile and Web clients. Partners may want to push customers to implement the improved Outlook Web Access—Web-based access is the most popular form of remote e-mail access among business users.

Protection. A "Built-in Protection" theme highlights features for blocking spam and preventing phishing. Spam continues to be a major irritant for corporate customers, and in addition to configuring Exchange's built-in Forefront antispam and antivirus features, partners can earn commissions by encouraging customers to use Microsoft's Exchange Hosted Filtering, which filters out malware on Microsoft-hosed servers before it reaches the customer's Exchange server.

Archiving and regulatory compliance. Public companies, financial services, and healthcare firms may be particularly interested in Exchange 2007's systems for archiving and deleting messages, as required by authorities that want messages preserved for a specific time to aid in auditing corporate compliance with regulatory requirements, or that want customer records to be expunged in an orderly fashion to ensure confidentiality or reduce liability. These requirements, along with the growing size of e-mail messages and attachments, can help partners sell additional storage.

Operations. An "Operational Efficiency" message emphasizes better security, server management, scalability, and regulatory and financial compliance technologies. Customers are likely to respond positively to the suggestion that downtime can be reduced because of Exchange 2007's new availability features, such as message store replication and its more granular architecture for message databases (smaller databases can be restored faster). Microsoft will pitch many Exchange 2007 features at technical and administrative audiences, including the PowerShell command-line interface, and discrete Exchange server roles that can be used to create more scalable systems. Exchange's new 64-bit architecture (earlier versions were 32-bit only) permits more users per server and larger mailboxes, although such discussions could stray into a drawback of Exchange 2007: customers must run a 64-bit OS on an x64 processor to use it, and they cannot upgrade existing 32-bit Exchange installations in-place, although mailboxes can be migrated.

Partners will find that many of their customers require hardware upgrades, and all Exchange customers will require server OS upgrades before they can begin installing Exchange Server 2007.

Incentives and Promotions for Customers

Licensing Exchange 2007 is substantially more complex than with its predecessors: customers who want to use its full feature set, including the unified inbox and advanced compliance features, must purchase two separate Client Access Licenses (CALs)—a Standard CAL and an Enterprise CAL—for each computer or user accessing Exchange 2007. Even customers who have Software Assurance (SA) upgrade rights from Exchange 2003 must pay extra for the Enterprise CALs. (Customers with SA on Exchange 2003 CALs will get Exchange 2007 Standard CALs at no additional charge.)

One of the main promotions for Exchange 2007 is intended to reduce the financial pain of the upgrade by eliminating the acquisition cost of the new Enterprise CALs. For a limited time, Microsoft will waive the US$35 license cost of the Enterprise CAL, although customers will still need to pay US$25 a year for Enterprise CAL SA. That price may still be painful for some customers, particularly since it is an annual payment charged for each computer that accesses advanced Exchange capabilities, and it is substantially higher than the typical cost for SA, which would be about US$9 a year. The higher price gives customers access to hosted antispam and archiving features that reduce the load on the Exchange server and provide another layer of security and backup for messages.

Partner Threats, Opportunities

One potential downside for Microsoft partners is that new Exchange features, such as unified messaging or mail archiving, could affect ISVs that have provided unified inbox applications for earlier versions of Exchange.

However, some of the major players in Internet voice messaging, such as Cisco and Avaya (Microsoft licensed the latter's technology to provide unified inbox services on Exchange Server 2003 for its own employees), are likely to see positive as well as negative impacts from Microsoft's foray into their area of the market, since they make IP-based PBXs, routers, handsets and other components of VoIP systems that will likely benefit from Exchange Server 2007 sales. Telecom vendor Nortel has already announced an alliance with Microsoft to deepen integration between Nortel's equipment and Microsoft's systems.

Even customers who don't plan to upgrade to Exchange 2007—because of hardware or licensing issues, for example—might provide opportunities for partners. Many Exchange 2007 features can be implemented on Exchange 2003 using third-party software for unified inboxes, message archiving for regulatory compliance, or high-availability failover and backup. Exchange 2007 marketing will build interest in such features, and partners can capitalize on it by implementing those capabilities on the far larger installed base of Exchange 2003 customers.

New Certifications and Competencies

As it has done with major new product releases since 2005, Microsoft has also announced new Exchange-related certifications for individuals, and Microsoft Partner Program MSPP competencies for partner companies. These certifications and competencies (which may require specific Exchange certifications) can enhance a partner's or consultant's credibility when dealing with customers who are evaluating Exchange Server 2007 deployments.

New Certifications

Two new certifications accompany the release of Exchange 2007.

A Technology Specialist: Exchange Server 2007 Configuration certification can be gained by passing an exam on Exchange Server 2007 configuration (Exam 70-326), which is available in English now and will be available in additional languages by the end of April.

An IT Professional: Enterprise Messaging Administrator certification requires completion of exams for designing (Exam 70-237) and deploying (Exam 70-238) messaging solutions based on Exchange Server 2007. Exam 70-237 will be available in English in mid-May, and Exam 70-238 will be available in English by the end of June 2007. Both exams will be available in other languages starting the last quarter of 2007.

Competencies

The MSPP offers partners the ability to earn competencies (often divided into specializations), which move them up in the MSPP and help them promote their expertise with customers.

The Advanced Infrastructure Solutions competency already contains an Exchange Migration and Deployment specialization, and the exams used for the Enterprise Messaging Administrator certification have been added to the list of exams that can be used to meet some of the requirements for that specialization.

Microsoft has also announced a new Unified Communications specialization that will focus on Exchange 2007 and Communication Server 2007. Partners can sign up for an Early Start Initiative that gives them access to training, briefings, exams, and communications from Microsoft so that they can earn the new specialization quickly when it becomes available later in 2007.

Resources

A comprehensive look at Exchange Server 2007 can be found in the Mar. 2007 Research Report, "Evaluating Exchange Server 2007 and Outlook 2007."

The Exchange Server 2007 Learning Portal, accessible to end customers and partners, has information about online, print, and classroom training opportunities, at www.microsoft.com/learning/exchange2007/default.mspx.

The Unified Communications competency is described at https://partner.microsoft.com/global/program/competencies/40029082. (Partner registration is required to access this URL.)

Exchange Connections, scheduled in Orlando, FL, from Apr. 1 through 4, will offer technical briefings on many Exchange technologies and partner products. The home page is www.devconnections.com/shows/SP2007EXCH/default.asp?s=94.