Microsoft Posts First Public Beta Of Upcoming Exchange ServerMicrosoft Posts First Public Beta Of Upcoming Exchange Server

Most users got their first hands-on opportunity to try out the next version of Microsoft Exchange on Monday, when Microsoft posted the second beta to its Web site.

New functionality is designed to enhance the software's performance for mobile and remote users connecting to centralized servers over wide area networks.

The software was previously available only to about 100 customers in closed beta. It's scheduled to be generally available in mid-2003, following the release of Windows .Net Server 2003. Also to be released at the same time as the Exchange server is Office 11, the next version of Microsoft Office.

The new Exchange version will be called Microsoft Exchange Server 2003, the company said Monday. Until now, it's been known by the code name Titanium.

Microsoft designed the new Exchange server to appeal to the significant number of companies that have been slow to upgrade from Exchange Version 5.5 to Exchange 2000. Microsoft is trying to entice those slow-to-upgrade users by enhancing scalability, reliability, and efficiency of bandwidth usage without making significant alterations to the overall architecture, says IDC analyst Mark Levitt.

"It's about improving, streamlining, and making it easier to move to the latest version of Exchange in a way that wasn't achieved in Exchange 2000," Levitt says. At least half of all Exchange business users have yet to migrate from 5.5 to 2000, he says.

Companies will need to install all three products -- Office 11, Exchange 2003, and Windows .Net Server -- to take advantage of the full functionality of the Exchange server.

Enhanced backup and clustering, along with improved network usage, are designed to make it easier for enterprises to centralize servers into regional data centers and support more users in remote offices without a dedicated mail server on site, Microsoft says.

The software includes functionality designed to make it more useful when used by remote and mobile users.

"The version of Outlook that most people have deployed out there wasn't designed to work very well in mobile environments," says Gartner analyst David Smith.

The new version of Exchange, combined with the new Outlook, is designed to constantly synchronize data between the Exchange server and a local store on the user's desktop; data is always moving in a trickle between the desktop and server. That means users operating when disconnected from the network will have their messages stored locally. The constant trickle of data also makes network usage more efficient even when users have a high-speed Internet connection.

Exchange Server 2003 and Outlook 11 eliminate the need for costly VPN connections by connecting directly to the Exchange server over the public Internet using the Messaging Application Programming Interface over Secure HTTP, Microsoft says.

The software also has built-in support for handheld and Web clients. Outlook Web Access has been upgraded to give the software most of the capabilities of a full desktop client from a browser, along with updated user interface matching much of Outlook 11. The new server software also has built-in support for wireless access with Outlook Mobile Access, providing support for mobile devices running iMode, cHTML, and WAP 2.0 microbrowsers, as well as Windows Powered Pocket PC and Smartphone devices.

In conjunction with Windows .Net Server 2003, the new version of Exchange server permits faster backup using Volume Shadow Copy, which lets users take a snapshot of a server disk image. Exchange Server 2003 combined with Windows .Net Server 2003 also supports clusters of up to eight nodes, compared with a four-node limit for Exchange on Windows 2000.

The Exchange server software also includes tools for deployment and management, including add-ons to Active Directory, and Microsoft Operations Manager.

The software offers rudimentary spam and virus protection features, including support for connection filtering based on real-time black hole lists and dial-up users lists, inbound recipient filtering, and blocks for tricks that spammers put in HTML E-mail to track users. Microsoft also improved VSAPI, the virus-scanning API that allows third-party anti-virus vendors to work with Exchange.

Spam blocking will be a priority for Microsoft, although the company has yet to determine whether to develop anti-spam technology on its own or work with partners, says Jim Bernardo, product manager in the .Net Enterprise Servers Group for Microsoft.