In late 2006 or early 2007, Microsoft plans to ship the next major release of Exchange Server, code-named “Exchange 12.” Exchange 12 promises unified messaging and improved security and manageability through a set of server roles, easier integration with apps through Web services, and improved performance and scalability through 64-bit support. Current Exchange customers should begin planning now for if, when, and how they will migrate to the upcoming edition.
Microsoft “plans”… Exchange 12 “promises”… planning now for “if, when, and how they will migrate”.
Given the track record of the Exchange direction, missed release dates, and the reluctance of customers to move off of Exchange 5.5, I don’t see this as a very positive announcement… 🙂
Tom,
This is Forrester, not Microsoft writing the article. Some do take Microsoft seriously enoughh I guess.
I know it’s Forrester, Peter… I still don’t find it very positive. 🙂
John… While I might agree with you a bit on the Workplace plans, I would highly disagree with you on this applying in the least about Notes. Notes has delivered on schedule and migration does not involve switching out all my servers as well as upgrading my directory infrastructure…
Sorry – just found it quite funny that I could replace some of those words in that last comment with IBM, Notes and Workplace and it’d still hold true. 🙂
Tom,
Just curious ..
No matter what you think of Microsoft and Exchange as one of their marketleading products. Don’t you agree it is good for clients to prepare for a future release of their email platform ?
Investments in hardware for example may occur in the timeframe between today and MS Exchange’ release and purchases may better be in line with future / planned deployments.
A lot of clients do have a planning process for their architecture to which they justify investements having a 3 year planning window is not uncommon
Peter, you seem to have left out the part of this report that says “The amount of change Microsoft will be introducing not only in Exchange 12, but also the Windows server and client, and the entire Microsoft Office System suite, opens the door for Microsoft’s competitors in the collaboration platforms market. Customers will have the opportunity to look at the software, hardware, and training costs associated with the new Microsoft product versions and evaluate alternatives.”
Hi Duffbert – sorry, I was referring to the Notes only in the “reluctance to move off .. ..” piece.
Ed,
Not deliberatly. Respecting the copyright I didn’t quote the whole report ;-).
It is a fact the as part of the Office 12 wave , Microosft will also be renwing the entire server platform (new Windows SharePoint Services, SharePoint Portal Server, etc.)
So yes, the discussion is about much more than just the email platform. We knew that already didn’t we ? The discussion is not about Lotus Notes or Workplace vs MS Exchange vs Oracle Collaboration suite to name a few; it’ about platforms and about how these address the challenges organsiation are facing in term of Communication and Collaboration.
In the market analysis category (http://www.peterdehaas.com/market_analysis/index.html) you can find the reports I have highlighted in this field. All of them are quite clear about Microsoft’s vision and ability to execute in this area. Will there be competition from IBM, Google, Oracle, Novell, etc ? Yes, for sure and I would argue it will also increase.
Thanks for this angle 😉
John – “Reluctance to move off” may apply to Notes the platform, but that’s a positive for IBM, just as reluctance to move off of Exchange is a plus for Microsoft. But that’s not what Tom was talking about. Tom was talking about reluctance to upgrade from Exchange 5.5. IBM doesn’t have nearly as big a problem with Notes customers continuing to run 8-year old versions of Notes. And for those very few customers who are still on Notes 4 (I did just, in fact, upgrade one, but it was the first I’ve seen in years), it’s not nearly the ordeal that upgrading a customer from Exchange 5.5 to current versions is.
And no… it’s not a problem that IBM hasn’t gotten Notes customers to move to Workplace Messaging, because they never positioned it as an upgrade for Notes customers. For all the garbled marketing that they were putting out a few years ago, IBM should be credited with getting it right in one respect: right from the time they introduced it as the first member of the Workplace family, IBM was very clear that the Workplace Messaging product was targeted at specific under-served segments of the market for whom the full Notes client was not an option, and that migration of seats from Notes to Workplace Messaging was not a goal. (Note that I am speaking only about Workplace Messaging here, as this discussion is spawning off of the topic of E12. IBM did put out marketing messages that implied that the entire Workplace platform was intended to replace Notes seats, but fortunately that message has been scrapped. The current message from IBM is one of protecting investment becausse Notes is a part of Workplace. Anyone who spreads the message that IBM is going to force customers to migrate off of Notes is either misinformed, or is deliberately misinforming.)
Yeah, what Richard said! 🙂
If I were an Exchange customer, I’d certainly start planning now around Exchange server stability:
http://www.edbrill.com/ebrill/edbrill.nsf/dx/survey-reveals-extensive-server-disasters-and-data-loss-among-enterprises?opendocument&comments
If your a big Exchange shop, and your just completely tired of “unrecoverable database errors”, virus dissemination, lack of Disaster recovery (Oh – your IT didnt tell you that exchange Clustering relies on a shared hard drive – a single point of failure?), “rip and replace” costly upgrades, and of course the “once a year we’ll do a fix pack” attitude to enhancements, security updates and features – well – just take a peek at Lotus Notes and Domino – and see why the oil industry (just for one) is “unplugging” Exchange for Domino…
Because lets face it – Exchange 12 gives you nothing new. So why wait ?
—* Bill
@ Bill,
Are you running ads for Ed now ? 😉
Serious survey, will have to thoroughly read it to best understand what it’s about.
Although Searchdomino has less credibility thans this established researchburo (afterall its “just” the Lotus Notes community) it does have an interesting poll on server stabiity
http://searchdomino.techtarget.com/pollResult/0,294375,sid4_gci1135130,00.html