Exchange 2010 beta shines

Earlier this week, Microsoft unveiled the beta of Exchange Server 2010, the next iteration of its flagship messaging platform. The general consensus appears to be that Exchange 2010 is gentler on administrators, unlike the steep learning curve in the major changes in Exchange 2007.

Exchange Server 2010 is no minor upgrade either. It is the first in a new generation of Microsoft server technology to be built completely from the ground up, and it is considered a major upgrade with a plethora of refinements over Exchange 2007.

There are a number of key features. My favorite is the "conversation view." Have you ever been caught up in a situation where an email to a group elicits multiple (group) replies as well as individual responses? Rather than having to go through the tedium of filing them into yet another folder, or wasting time sifting them out from the general clutter, simply switch to conversation view, which will allow you to collapse these messages into a single expandable node.

In addition, Outlook Web Access (OWA) has been beefed up, and it now supports Internet Explorer 7 and 8, as well as Firefox 3 and Safari 3. This is significant because the Exchange 2010 version of OWA will have full parity with Outlook 2010--everything that can be done in Outlook can be done using OWA. From the looks of it, Exchange 2010 will be a worthwhile upgrade indeed.

For more on this story:
- check out this article at TechNewsWorld
- check out this article at Computerworld

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