Solution Overview

For most businesses today, e-mail is the mission-critical communications tool that allows their people to produce the best results. This greater reliance on e-mail has increased the number of messages sent and received, the variety of work getting done, and even the speed of business itself. Amid this change, employee expectations have also evolved. Today, employees look for rich, efficient access—to e-mail, calendars, attachments, contacts, and more—no matter where they are or what type of device they are using.

For IT professionals, delivering a messaging system that addresses these needs must be balanced against other requirements such as security and cost. Enterprise security requirements have become more complex as the demand and use for e-mail has increased. Today, IT departments must contend with e-mail security threats that are wide ranging: continually evolving spam and viruses, noncompliance risks, the vulnerability of e-mail to interception and tampering, in addition to the potential harmful effects of natural and man-made disasters.

While security is clearly a priority, IT is ever cognizant of the need to manage cost. Time, money, and resource constraints are a fact of life as IT is made accountable to do more with less. As a result, IT professionals look for a messaging system that addresses both enterprise and employee needs while also being cost-effective to deploy and manage.

Microsoft Exchange Server 2007 has been designed specifically to meet these challenges and address the needs of the different groups who have a stake in the messaging system. The new capabilities of Microsoft Exchange Server 2007 deliver the advanced protection your company demands, the anywhere access your people want, and the operational efficiency you, in IT, need.

Unified Communications – The New Frontier

Communications and collaboration are critical elements of business success. Companies that are able to successfully integrate communication and collaboration processes in their business workflows can lower expenses, increase efficiency, and realize the value of information assets they already have.

Part of this integration process involves integrating different communications methods and systems. Historically, e-mail (and related data, like calendar, contact, and task data), voice mail, and fax traffic have traveled on separate paths through communications networks, and they've been accessible through separate tools: computers, telephones, and fax machines. In the new world of work, employees require easier access to these communication types, leading to the integration of telephony, fax, and e-mail capabilities into desktop and mobile clients. The first set of unified messaging solutions put the emphasis on allowing individual users to originate different kinds of communications traffic, including desktop faxing and e-mail, but lacked an effective set of server-based reception, storage, management, and policy control capabilities. As the market matured, unified messaging systems added fax and voice mail capabilities to existing e-mail systems, but these improved products are typically tied to specific proprietary phone systems.

Microsoft's introduction of unified messaging support in Microsoft Exchange Server 2007 marks the start of the third wave of unified messaging technology: robust, interoperable, server-based tools that integrate with desktop and mobile clients to give information workers access to voice, fax, and e-mail data from wherever they are and allows users to use the telephone to manage their email, calendar, and personal contacts.

Business Benefits

Microsoft Exchange Server 2007 has been designed specifically to meet these challenges and address the needs of the different groups who have a stake in the messaging system. The new capabilities of Microsoft Exchange Server 2007 deliver the advanced protection your company demands, the anywhere access your people want, and the operational efficiency you, in IT, need.

Built-in Protection
Anti-spam and Antivirus	Built-in defenses against spam and phishing e-mail as well as additional integrated filtering and multi-engine scanning capabilities provide advanced protection.*
Compliance	Controls for messages in transport or requiring retention, and flexible journaling help meet organizational, legal and regulatory compliance requirements.
Business Continuity	New data replication capabilities (local and clustered) keep the system highly available while limiting the need and frequency for tape backup.
Confidential Messaging	New encryption features for both internal and Internet-based messages help protect the confidentiality of messages in transit.
Anywhere Access
Unified Messaging	New Exchange Unified Messaging goes beyond e-mail to deliver more types of communications to the inbox, including faxes and voice mail, as well as offering new capabilities such as voice access from any standard phone.
Web-Based Messaging	A rich Outlook-like experience from any Internet connected computer with a supported browser provides encrypted access to the inbox, powerful search, and the ability to view different types of attachments.
Mobile Messaging	Exchange ActiveSync technology delivers an improved e-mail and calendaring experience on mobile devices, while offering enhanced device and security policy control.
Collaboration and Productivity	Enhanced calendaring, out-of-office, resource booking, and meeting scheduling capabilities simplify collaboration and increase productivity.
Operational Efficiency
Performance and Scalability	Improved storage efficiency can be achieved through the extended memory and larger cache of x64-based architecture even as mailbox sizes increase; more efficient routing ensures the best use of bandwidth.
Administration	New graphical and command-line interfaces offer improved manageability and increased automation while integrated tools simplify maintenance.
Deployment	Modular setup and server provisioning based on server roles, as well as capabilities to automatically discover Outlook and mobile clients simplify deployment.
Extensibility	New Web services-based application programming interface (API) and .NET integration via Exchange Management Shell tasks enable rapid development for custom and third-party applications.

Move Ahead With Unified Communications

• Less wasted time. People are able to quickly send, receive, and find the exact information they need, no matter what form it was delivered in and no matter where they are.
• One inbox. Exchange Server 2007 seamlessly delivers e-mail, voice mail, calendar data, and fax messages into users' inboxes. Users can sort, manage, and act on multiple message types without having to switch between applications or systems.
• Anywhere access. Exchange Unified Messaging delivers access from familiar clients like Microsoft Office Outlook®, Outlook Web Access, a variety of mobile devices, and ordinary telephones.
• Reduced costs. Integrated unified messaging systems allow site and server consolidation, reducing the total number of servers required to provide voice mail and fax service. Consolidation can dramatically lower maintenance and upkeep costs, particularly for organizations with remote or branch offices.
• Foundation for unified communications. The combination of e-mail, voice mail, and fax capability can be augmented with presence, instant messaging (IM), and real-time conferencing capability to expand the ways in which users can share information and communicate.