Exchange 2010 Beta—The future of UC is here!

The beta for Exchange Server 2010, the cornerstone of our UC technology, is here and available for download today at www.microsoft.com/exchange/2010 . This release is, without question, the best Exchange yet. And, it all centers around our customers. With Exchange 2010, we demonstrate our relentless pursuit of addressing customers’ needs – both IT professionals and end users. If I could sum up Exchange 2010 in one phrase it would be: Accomplish More. At the end of the day, that’s what it’s all about – getting more done while lowering costs. Exchange 2010 delivers on this promise in so many ways – let’s dig into just a few.

With Exchange 2010, customers can:

· Get the rich inbox experience across the PC, phone and browser.  Exchange, with Outlook, Outlook Mobile and Outlook Web Access, offers consistent and full featured universal inbox (that means email, voicemail with text previews, SMS, IM all in one place) experience regardless of where you’re accessing your email. Based on the new inbox productivity tools and anywhere access, my team is literally getting 30-60 minutes back a day in productivity time saved.

· Never send that mistaken email again.   With MailTips, you are warned before you hit send about sending to a very large distribution group, sending to recipients outside of the company and the annoyance of sending email to someone out of the office only to get their OOF message and having to send it again to someone else. It’s like having x-ray vision into your email system.

· End the .PST forever.  IT admins will soon be able to say “what’s a .PST?” because the new archive feature provides the option to eliminate .PST files (personal, locally stored e-mail repositories) while not disrupting the end user experience or having to learn new IT management tools. The Exchange 2010 integrated archive lowers e-discovery costs and brings this business critical functionality within reach for all customers.

· Lower support costs through reduced help desk calls. Non-deliverable e-mails and message delivery tracking are top drivers of email support costs. With Exchange 2010’s new end user self-service capabilities and inbox features, these calls are dramatically reduced.

· Replace legacy voice mail systems. That’s right. Customers can eliminate costly maintenance fees, get more from IT resources, and boost productivity with Exchange 2010 voice mail with unified messaging - especially with the enhancements we’ve made to this version, such as the new voice mail text preview, so you can quickly triage voice mails without ever listening to the message).

· Dramatically lower storage costs and deliver larger mailbox quotas. The incredible advances around Exchange 2010 storage management and IOPs reduction enable organizations to choose low-cost storage options while still ensuring high availability. This means offering end users larger mailboxes while not increasing costs is possible -- this is truly where you can deliver more for less.

And that is just the tip of the iceberg. For more on the benefits Exchange 2010 can bring to you and your organization, check out the video Q&A with Rajesh Jha, corporate vice president of Exchange, and visit the Office 2010 and related products virtual press room for more.

With that, go download the beta, take it for a spin and let us know what you think!