Many people have been asking about upgrading to Exchange 2007. This version of Microsoft Exchange has many new and future features that the older versions do not. The unified messaging system will allow to access all your communications through Outlook – voice mail, faxes and of course email. The new design of Outlook Web Access (OWA) is very slick, and looks & handles almost like the desktop version of Outlook. Another feature slated to be releases is Outlook Voice Access (OVA) – as the name implies you will be able to access your messages over the phone including your emails & calendar items. Imagine sending an Outlook meeting request by talking (not typing) on your cell phone.
With all that, many of these new features are not yet available. There are also features from Exchange 2003 that do not yet work in Exchange 2007. If you are looking at a hosted solution, check to see if the provider used a Microsoft Designed & Tested Platform for Exchange 2007. Some companies just set it up without going through rigorous testing, while other’s released it using the beta version.
If you are one of those that absolutely positively need to be on the bleeding edge, then by all means do so – sign up for Exchange 2007. Just be aware of the limitations. For those that are not sure, or do not need it I would suggest staying with Exchange 2003 at least until service pack 1 (SP1) is released.
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