Late Monday, Microsoft announced the completion of Exchange Server 2003, its upcoming new messaging server. Exchange 2003 was originally scheduled for release alongside related products such as Microsoft Office 2003, but diverging development cycles altered that schedule. Now, Office 2003 and its Exchange-related Outlook 2003 client will be released to manufacturing (RTM) in August, and be launched in October. Originally, both Exchange and Office were scheduled to ship in June.
"Customers told us we had to deliver greater value with less complexity," said Mohsen al-Ghosein, the vice president of Exchange Server at Microsoft. "When an IT administrator deploys Exchange 2003 out of the box, it "just has to work." Information workers need access to their inboxes from anywhere and everywhere and they want the same performance and experience as if they were sitting in front of their desktop. After three years of research and development, customers should have the confidence that we"ve answered their call. Deployment and management will be easier with Exchange 2003, and implementation will be possible with the knowledge and experience an IT administrator already has. And because IT can get Exchange up and running faster and cheaper, Exchange 2003 enables a company to optimize business processes and magnify productivity."