The world is a different place than it was when
Microsoft Corp. released Exchange 2007 software a few years ago – today, the economy is down and the demand for productivity is up as Exchange 2010 enters the market by the end of this year. Early forecasts indicate that the industry is ready for Microsoft’s latest messaging software release as users champion its features.
“(There are) a lot of expectations,” said Tim Hickernell, associate lead research analyst at London, Ont.-headquartered Info-Tech Research Group. “As our clients are moving toward their budgeting activities for fiscal year 2010, we are seeing tremendous interest in Exchange upgrades in particular. There’s lots of interest in hosted e-mail too.”
According to Hickernell, the impetus for organizations moving to upgrade their existing communications software is not purely for cost savings. Instead, it’s a result of a belief that “while e-mail itself is mission critical still, the management of the system can be outsourced.”
For users of the past versions of Exchange and its upcoming 2010 version, driving factors for its adoption include increased productivity, mobility, simplicity and compliance. Andy Papdaopoulos, president of Legend Corp., a Toronto-based technology solutions firm and Microsoft partner, observed that while the mad rush to switch to Exchange 2007 among 2003 users was not as urgent, Exchange 2010 is expected to deliver new features that will make it an advantageous option for organizations big and small.
“Now that Exchange 2003 has gone out of mainstream light… people need to plan their next mail system, “Papadopoulos said. “(SMB) users… don’t really care what the back end technology needs to run, they simply want those productivity features. And secondly… mobility is becoming more and more key with devices. They simply want to have the same experiences on their laptop, desktop or mobile devices no matter where they are. They don’t want to have to think about VPN and complex solutions anymore.”
