Microsoft Exchange Conference ’98 Draws More Than 4,000 Attendees

, September 9, 1998 — A new study shows that large organizations can substantially boost their return on investment by switching from legacy messaging systems to Microsoft Exchange Server.

A survey of 26 large organizations conducted by Giga Information Group found that migrating to Exchange Server from legacy mail environments such as Lotus cc:Mail and Microsoft Mail provides companies with average annual savings of $2,393 per employee. Microsoft, which announced the results of the survey this week at Microsoft Exchange Conference ’98, said the savings are due to lower budgeted costs, lower indirect costs associated with downtime, less need for end-user peer support, and employee productivity gains.

“Customers are clearly benefiting from their investments in the superior messaging infrastructure with Microsoft Exchange and Outlook,” said Rich Tong, Vice President, Applications Product Management at Microsoft. “This study confirms how important reliability is for the messaging infrastructure, and the business benefits of a reliable, cost-effective messaging system.”

Microsoft also announced the availability of a free suite of tools that make it easier to migrate from cc:Mail and Lotus Notes to Exchange. The tools, which can be downloaded from Microsoft’s Web site, make it faster and less costly for users to move from cc:Mail and Lotus Notes to Exchange, Microsoft officials said. The tools also allow organizations to use these e-mail systems with Exchange.

Microsoft made the announcements at its third annual Microsoft Exchange Conference, which is taking place Wednesday through Friday in Boston. The conference, which is designed to provide Microsoft’s customers and partners with up-to-date information about Exchange Server technologies and their future direction, attracted more than 4,000 attendees.

The conference features keynote speeches from Microsoft executives Brian Valentine and Bob Muglia as well as several technical sessions aimed at showing developers how to create applications that run with Exchange. Participants can also tour the booths of more than 90 exhibitors who have designed applications that complement Exchange.

The installed base of Exchange Server has grown by more than 200 percent since last year’s Exchange Conference, with more than 16.6 million users currently making Exchange Server and the Outlook 98 messaging and collaboration client their messaging system of choice.

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