Exchange Server: Experience Isn’t Overnight

Email continues to be the lifeblood of business communications so it should come as no surprise that vendors of all shapes and sizes want a piece of the action. The fact remains, however, that the vendors that will win in this space – and deliver the type of experience and service demanded by customers -- are the ones who treat email with a mission critical mentality and who prove time and again that they are in it for the long haul.

The critical nature of email is underscored for me by our semi-annual email tracker research that surveys 4,000 companies across the world to track their business email and related communications solutions in use. Over the past two years, our research shows that changes are subtle despite the hub-bub the vendor world has created around business email. Even down to companies of just five employees, their email solution is mission critical and a transition is not taken lightly.

We know there are new big vendors trying to get into the email game, but it’s not clear whether any of these vendors has the commitment and dedication to earn customers’ trust in such a key workload area. For one perspective on this, read Tom Austin’s (Gartner) recent blog post.

And, in Gartner’s recent 2010 MarketScope for E-mail Systems, the analyst firm rated Microsoft ‘strong positive,’ the highest possible rating. You can read about all of the vendors included in the full report here.

Exchange has earned customer loyalty and leading market share because the mission critical nature of business email and calendaring is deeply ingrained in how we think about our business, our customers and about what we do every day. We know that we have to keep pushing the limits on performance for IT and productivity for users. Email and calendaring has as much direct impact on business productivity as any technology available and we deeply understand and appreciate that our customers are counting on us to deliver time and time again.

That is why I’m incredibly pleased that Exchange 2010 SP1 is now available for download here, because it provides us with yet another opportunity to demonstrate the commitment to our customers. SP1 brings to market the key archiving capabilities that our customers asked of us including tiered storage and making Outlook Web App a richer experience that performs even better.

Being in the email business is something we have always taken very seriously, and we are proud to be the choice customers keep coming back to despite the many options out there. We believe our continued success is based on the simple fact that we are completely committed to delivering what our customers want and need, and in making sure that we deliver on that commitment every day.

Julia White

Director, Exchange Product Management