MS Exchange

This new add-on to Microsoft’s Office 2010 Outlook Social Connector lets you plug Facebook and Windows Live right into your inbox! Designed to simplify your daily routine, it helps you stay connected with your friends, family and colleagues by letting you view your social network while you’re working with your email.

With Outlook Social Connector, you’ll be able to view status updates, wall posts and profile pictures from right within Outlook. Another great feature is the ability to add “Friends” to Facebook and Windows Live directly from the Outlook People Pane to grow your social network faster.

Interested? Here’s a short video about the additional features of the Outlook Social Connector.

Where to get it

Outlook 2003 and 2007 users can download the latest version from the Microsoft Download Center. Office 2010 users can get the Outlook Social Connector update through Microsoft Update. Feel free to use the Facebook provider download and the Windows Live Messenger provider download or see what  other social networks are available through the Outlook Social Connector provider page.

“Mac to Exchange” … “Come in Exchange, do you read me?”

Getting a shiny new Mac to connect to Microsoft Exchange is simple, as it should be right?  Apple prides itself on “It just works.”, so it should just work without a lot of complicated setup.  Lucky for us, talking to Exchange does just work, especially when talking to it from Snow Leopard, OS X 10.6.

Is it a mystery? To some it still is. Here’s the deal. Exchange is email. If you’ve ever used Outlook, you were probably using Exchange Servers or something like them. Outlook is often the interface to a hosted Exchange Server.

I talk to people all the time about hosting SharePoint and Exchange together for them. Often times I get that blank look… You know the same one I got when I asked the best looking girl in my college marketing class to go out with me. For some reason people think that Exchange is some convoluted program that they don’t need or have the ability to comprehend. It is email, contacts, calendars – personal information management – most often used for businesses.

Fpweb.net offers both ActiveSync and Blackberry service. If it weren’t for a hosted option, I might not recommend using a Blackberry service/server. The value of our hosted service is that the cost and headaches of Blackberry Enterprise Server (BES) are handled for you. If you are purchasing, implementing and maintaining BES in-house, the cost and configuration alone will drive you mad.

Real Example

I recently quoted a current client of ours for an Exchange server bundled with BlackBerry Enterprise Server for 75 BlackBerry users. The cost was around $2,000. He quickly asked what the cost would be if he just used ActiveSync (most commonly used for Apple iPhone mail or Windows Mobile devices), I told him… $1,000. When he asked me what the difference was in security and functionality, I had to be honest – there isn’t any difference.

Daily, we get customers who are learning the hard way that Microsoft’s Online Services BPOS (business productivity online service) does have significant limitations when it comes to SharePoint.

So… the official name is no longer Exchange 14.  It’s now Exchange 2010, and the Exchange 2010 Beta is released.  It will be the first release for the highly anticipated Office 2010 suite, probably end of 2009. The rest of the Office 14 Microsoft Office 2010 Suite (including SharePoint 2010, Visio 2010, and Project 2010) won’t be released until…(drum roll please) 3rd quarter 2010.

Here’s a video from the Microsoft Exchange blog, posted last night.  The feature previews start at around 1:25.

Rollup 7 for Exchange Server 2007 SP1 has been released. It will be available via Windows Update March 24^th. This Rollup contains 51 customer fixes and 16 additional fixes. Below, I’ve listed a few key developments.

For the full list visit:

http://support.microsoft.com/?kbid=960384.

Some more information regarding these updates:
http://msexchangeteam.com/archive/2009/03/18/450863.aspx

If I had a nickel for every time I hear this question:

“Hey Rob, how does Fpweb.net MOSS hosting compete with Microsoft Online Services?”

That is a truly loaded question – bacon bits and all.  The short answer is we do not compete.  Our services are totally different.  We augment their services.  However, I think there are also some little known and publicized facts about Microsoft Online Services that consultants and Certified Partners should be keenly aware of regarding their SMB (small medium business) customers.  Microsoft Online Services and Fpweb.net both have SMB and Enterprise offerings.

Let’s explore Microsoft Online Services in more detail and their subtleties.

For all you Microsoft Exchange 2007 users that are constantly on-the-go, I’m sure you’ve become very familiar with Outlook Web Access (OWA).  Just in case you aren’t familiar, here is a brief run down:  OWA is a the handy web application that allows Exchange users to access their Outlook email and calendar information from a standard web browser, regardless of location.  Very cool for those of you that travel or use a shared workstation, but there is one caveat.

Wow. The new version of Microsoft Exchange is going to rock! Besides its spiffy look, here is an overview of some of the new Outlook Live or Outlook Web Access (OWA) with features for Exchange 14:

Multi-browser support – Works with IE, Firefox, and Safari

Integrated IM Chat – Communicate through the OWA/Outlook Live client with your contact list.

Conversation View for Messages – Easier to follow email conversations, threads, and offshoots from your emails.