Exchange 2007 and Forefront for Exchange has RTM'd!

 

At about 11am (PST) on December 8th we released Exchange Server 2007 to manufacturing.

Exchange 2003 was on general availability on the 28th of September 2003.  Its been 1167 days since the launch of Exchange 2003 and as always the internet has changed a lot during that time with everyone getting more email,  more spam and more virus' than before.  In order to cope with this we have made changes in three important areas of Exchange 2007.

• Built-in protection
• Anywhere access
• Operation Efficiancy

Over the past months,  we have also been working with a number of organisations in the UK to deploy Exchange 2007 into their environment and the results have been really positive.  Some of the customers are included below and we have more to come.

• Savills
• Blackwell Publishing
• BT including a video
• THIS

Today also sees the launch of Forefront for Exchange which further protects the end users from virus', worms and spam.  You may remember this as 'Antigen' which is a product we took on when we aquired Sybari.  Forefront,  like Exchange 2007,  focuses on three key areas

• Comprehensive Protection: Microsoft Forefront Security for Exchange Server includes multiple scan engines from industry-leading security firms integrated in a single solution to help businesses protect their Exchange messaging environments from viruses, worms, and spam.
• Optimized Performance: Through deep integration with Exchange Server, scanning innovations and performance controls, Forefront Security for Exchange Server helps protect messaging environments while maintaining uptime and optimizing server performance.
• Simplified Management: Forefront Security for Exchange Server also enables administrators to easily manage configuration and operation, automated scan engine signature updates and reporting at the server and enterprise level.

This has been my first product launch,  an interesting and great experience,  my thanks goes out to a number of people at Microsoft in the UK for their help over the last few months (you know who you are) and next on the to-do list is Office Communications Server 2007 .... and then Exchange 14 :-)