Exchange 2010 Launch: Week Round Up

Exchange 2010 launched today at the Microsoft Tech Ed Europe 2009 conference in Berlin, pledging a bigger and faster e-mail platform, with cost-savings to boot.

Of course, Microsoft will have its hands full convincing enterprises to upgrade in an economic downturn. The company has been stressing that deploying Exchange 2010 will ultimately cut costs with cheaper storage options and built-in e-mail archiving that will eliminate the need for a third-party archiving vendor.

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But even though enterprises such as Ford and Global Crossing are early adopters of on-premises Exchange 2010, Microsoft still must face down the growing threat of Google Apps and other Web-based productivity suites.

Last week Microsoft made a concession to this threat by lowering prices for its current Exchange Online service and its BPOS (Business Productivity Online Services) suite of online productivity apps. The online version of Exchange 2010 is scheduled to release in mid-2010.

Here's a round up of the latest Exchange 2010 stories from CIO.com and its sister publications.

Microsoft Makes Case for Upgrade to Exchange 2010 Microsoft is emphasizing the potentially money-saving features of Exchange 2010, the latest revamp of its e-mail application officially released Monday at its TechEd European customer conference in Berlin.

Slideshow: Best and Worst of Exchange 2010 In this Exchange 2010 slideshow, reviewer Joel Snyder checks out a boatload of the most interesting features of the shipping product and gives a thumbs up or thumbs down on whether Microsoft delivers the goods.

Exchange 2010 Has Challenges, Rewards for IT Executives Microsoft finished development on Exchange 2010 and now those looking to migrate face the task of digesting new features and the deployment challenges they pose.

Exchange 2010: Five Reasons Why I'm Upgrading Exchange 2010 has now shipped and faces more heat than ever from Google Apps and other hosted offerings. Here's a look at one CIO's decision-making process and the five key reasons why he chose on-premises Exchange 2010.

Exchange 2010: Why I'm Using It to Say Bye-Bye BlackBerry Here's how one company is using Exchange 2010 as a cost-saving tool to wean users off RIM BlackBerry smartphones and onto Windows Mobile 6.5.

Microsoft Targets Google Apps, Cuts Exchange Online Price Microsoft has cut in half its per user per month list price for Exchange Online services and cut by 33 percent the price of its Business Productivity Online Services suite of online productivity applications.

Shane O'Neill is a senior writer at CIO.com. Follow him on Twitter at twitter.com/smoneill. Follow everything from CIO.com on Twitter at twitter.com/CIOonline.