Claiming the cloud
As we saw yesterday, there is a lot of corporate jostling going on in the tech sector to try to get ahead of the pack in the field of cloud computing.
Right now Google is considered the front-runner when it comes to web based services and Microsoft is quite understandably worried that the huge revenues it has traditionally got from selling operating systems and productivity software will be terminally eroded by free or on-demand online offerings.
As a result, Microsoft is now tailoring its new software releases to the cloud and one illustration of this is the release of the public beta of Exchange Server 2010.
"Exchange 2010 ushers in the next generation of Microsoft unified communications software as the first server designed from inception to work both on-premises and as an online service," said Rajesh Jha, corporate VP of Exchange at Microsoft. "This release raises the bar with new archiving and end-user innovations that will help companies save money and employees save time."
As well as making Exchange easier for companies to use as an online service, rather than having to host it on their own servers, Microsoft is keen to promote it as a key component of its unified communications offering. This boils down to a rationalisation of all your communication methods - phone, email, IM, video conferencing, etc - to one manageable hub.
Go to the next page for some of the new features of Exchange Server 2010.
