Microsoft Launches Exchange Server 2003 Worldwide; Sets Benchmark for Increased Productivity and Lower Costs

NEW YORK, Oct. 21, 2003 — Today, Microsoft Corp. launched Exchange Server 2003, the next edition of its messaging and collaboration server, as part of the Microsoft®
Office System. Exchange Server 2003 delivers pervasive productivity to information workers through security-enhanced, ubiquitous access to business-critical communications and scheduling. A new study by the META Group released today predicts that in specific enterprise deployment scenarios, organizations can reduce approximately 50 percent of key operational costs related to server administration, hardware and software. More than 330,000 user seats have been deployed, and more than 200 customers in the early adopter programs are in the process of migrating to Exchange Server 2003 with confidence that it will simplify their IT infrastructure and enable them to make business decisions more efficiently and compete more effectively.

“Customers are juggling tight budgets, while at the same time under pressure to strengthen their network infrastructure and find new ways to serve their users. Messaging is the lifeblood for businesses; it’s the way people work and collaborate. With the increasing dependence our customers have on e-mail today, we were driven to make Exchange more reliable and accessible than ever,” said Paul Flessner, senior vice president of the Server Platform Division at Microsoft. “Exchange Server 2003 is the result of three years of customer feedback and it will deliver to our customers the best payback to date on their messaging investment.”

The META Group study looked at the potential cost savings a company could achieve by migrating from Exchange 5.5 to Exchange 2003 with a focus on operational costs. Analysts determined that a 45,000-user enterprise could generate about $600,000 in total annual operational costs. The savings are based on the elimination of 54 percent of an enterprise’s servers and an additional 51 percent savings in server management, administration and maintenance costs, mainly through site consolidation. Such reductions are possible with the enhancements in Exchange 2003 and Outlook®
2003, including Cached Exchange Mode, which improves the user experience especially for remote users with slow network connections; more efficient communication between client and server, which increases network bandwidth efficiency; and Volume Shadow Copy services, which deliver faster backup and restore capabilities. The META Group’s calculation is a mainstream average, and companies will see a variance based on labor costs, geographic distribution, product configuration and other variables. Furthermore, these savings reflect only a portion of the total cost of ownership of an Exchange e-mail infrastructure. The complete Exchange Ownership cost study is available to customers free of charge at http://www.microsoft.com/exchange/evaluation/ExchangeScenarios.asp .

In the less than four months since Exchange 2003 was released to manufacturing, customers are already reaping the benefits of increased productivity and reduced costs.

Customers Experience Pervasive Productivity

Nationwide law firm Katten Muchin Zavis Rosenman realized that attorneys were losing hours of productivity because they didn’t have “anytime, anywhere” access to e-mail when visiting clients or on the road. They needed a fast and secure mobility solution with greater scalability to keep IT costs down while providing users with reliable access to their Exchange data.

“For law firms, increasing productivity isn’t just a nice idea,” said Alexander Diaz, enterprise development manager at KMZ Rosenman. “Every increase in productivity frees our attorneys to provide more service to clients. Exchange Server 2003 and Outlook 2003 will enable our attorneys to meet current client demands while generating new business for the firm. With 600 attorneys, that could have a dramatic impact in additional annual revenue for the firm.”

Attorneys will gain a wide range of mobility options, including Outlook Web Access, RPC over HTTP (VPN-less connection), and the ability to sync with Windows Mobile (TM) -based devices such as Pocket PC Phone Edition and Smartphone, making it possible for them to get e-mail while they’re at a client location or waiting for a plane at the airport. Beyond the potential for increased revenue, KMZ Rosenman expects to reduce IT costs by more than $500,000.

LandAmerica Financial Group Inc. and Graphic Packaging International Inc. are two more customers that are seeing an immediate increase in productivity among information workers and IT administrators as a result of upgrading to Exchange 2003.

  • LandAmerica Financial Group is taking advantage of Cached Exchange Mode, better compression technology, Outlook Mobile Access and Exchange ActiveSync®
    technology to improve turnaround time for 10,000 agents who need faster access to e-mail to deliver title insurance and other real estate bids to potential new customers globally. “With Exchange 5.5, every time a remote user opened an e-mail, it had to be downloaded again from the corporate server. With Exchange 2003, we expect to reduce bandwidth consumption by 30 percent,” said Ken Meszaros, assistant vice president for Network Design at LandAmerica. “This significantly increases productivity, because end users can continue working in Outlook 2003 even if a network connection between the client and server is unavailable.”

  • Graphic Packaging International estimates that IT administrators will become 50 percent more productive with the upgrade to Exchange 2003 because they will be able to consolidate 15 mailbox servers down to one, freeing up 10 hours a week per person to work on other strategic projects. “The new Outlook Web Access client is also a big hit with employees who want to access e-mail using a Web browser from home or while traveling,” said Chris Flowers, IT engineering manager for Graphic Packaging International. “People used to use it as a last resort, but now that Outlook Web Access more closely mirrors the functionality of Outlook on the desktop, they feel more comfortable using it as a primary means to access their e-mail.”

Exchange 2003 Customers Expect to Do More With Less

New offices, new employees and an increasing use of e-mail have put a demand on the availability, performance and reliability of Exchange Server at Pacific Life Insurance Company. With the migration from Exchange 5.5 to Exchange 2003 and Outlook 2003, Pacific Life expects employees to reduce e-mail management time by up to 75 percent, significantly increasing productivity. But the company didn’t just want to extend the power and functionality of its messaging solution, it also wanted to reduce the cost.

“Eliminating 86 percent of our e-mail servers will kick off a major cost savings,” said Brad Sherrell, assistant vice president of Technology for the Life Insurance Division at Pacific Life. “The Life Insurance Division was an early adopter of Exchange 2003 because it is well-tested and reliable. There’s no need for a wait-and-see attitude about deployment, thanks to Microsoft’s work in shipping software that is secure with better encryption than previous versions of Exchange.”

Other manufacturing customers are realizing productivity gains that extend to the IT administrator, where investments in Exchange 2003 and Windows Server (TM) 2003 deliver enhanced availability, reliability and deployment tools.

  • Window and door manufacturer Pella Corp. experienced 99 percent uptime on its Exchange 5.5 system and expects “five nines” (99.999 percent) reliability once the migration to Exchange 2003 is complete. “We are reducing 16 servers down to six, and so far there has been absolutely no unscheduled downtime and no adverse user impact during our pilot,” said Jim Thomas, senior business systems manager and senior technology manager at Pella. “Impact on users’ productivity — that is our real bottom-line concern. Our lab tests show that data recovery time will drop from four to six hours to just 20 to 30 minutes with new innovations with Exchange 2003 and Volume Shadow Copy services.”

  • In a corporate culture where mobility is ingrained because employees are working on four continents across many time zones, Timex Corp. is upgrading from Exchange 2000 to Exchange 2003 to reduce costs and simplify administration by reducing nine e-mail servers down to just two, which will speed up performance and access to e-mail. “Migration was easy. And the Move Mailbox utility in Exchange 2003 is about 400 percent faster than it was in Exchange 2000,” said Steve Beaudry, director of Information Technology at Timex. “Speedy migration of mailboxes is crucial because with a global organization, there’s a vary narrow window of time for making the move without disrupting users. We needed to get Outlook Web Access up and running as fast as possible to reduce the time our employees spent trying to connect via dial-up or broadband.”

Exchange Server 2003 is available in two editions: Standard and Enterprise. Standard Edition is an optimal solution for small to medium-sized organizations as well as branch offices of large enterprises; Enterprise Edition meets the needs of larger organizations with more complex deployments and scalability requirements.

About Exchange Server 2003

Microsoft Exchange Server 2003 works with Windows Server 2003 and Microsoft Office Outlook 2003 to deliver best-in-class e-mail-based collaboration services that are highly secure, reliable and easy to access, enabling businesses to make decisions efficiently and compete more effectively. Exchange Server 2003 is part of the Windows Server System (TM) , Microsoft’s comprehensive, integrated and interoperable server infrastructure that simplifies the development, deployment and operation of agile business solutions. Exchange Server 2003 is also a key component in enabling information worker scenarios as part of the Microsoft Office System. More information on Exchange Server can be found at http://www.microsoft.com/exchange/ .

About the Microsoft Office System

The Microsoft Office System is an easy way to help more people use information to positively impact their business. Through a system of familiar and easy-to-use programs, servers, services and solutions, users can connect people and organizations to information, business processes and each other — helping ensure that they derive the most value out of information. The Microsoft Office System consists of the 2003 editions of Microsoft Office, Microsoft Office SharePoint (TM) Portal Server 2003, Microsoft Office Project and Project Server 2003, Microsoft Exchange Server 2003, Microsoft Office Live Communications Server 2003, Microsoft Office Live Meeting, Microsoft Office FrontPage® 2003, Microsoft Office InfoPath (TM) 2003, Microsoft Office OneNote (TM) 2003, Microsoft Office Publisher 2003, Microsoft Office Visio® 2003 and the Microsoft Office Solution Accelerators. Enabling technologies, such as Microsoft Windows®
SharePoint Services and Microsoft Windows Server 2003, enhance the features and functionality of products in the Microsoft Office System.

About Windows Server System

Microsoft Windows Server System is an integrated and interoperable server infrastructure that reduces IT complexity to enable IT professionals to deliver innovative solutions that meet the changing needs of business. With Windows Server 2003 at the foundation, Windows Server System is engineered from the ground up for XML Web services based on Microsoft .NET technologies to connect information, people, systems and devices. Based on a common software architecture that spans all facets of IT from design, development and deployment through ongoing management and usage, Windows Server System provides comprehensive IT infrastructure for operations (security, systems management, networked storage), applications (data management and analysis, e-business) and information work (messaging, communications and collaboration). More information on Microsoft Windows Server System can be found at http://www.microsoft.com/windowsserversystem/ .

About Microsoft

Founded in 1975, Microsoft (Nasdaq “MSFT”) is the worldwide leader in software, services and Internet technologies for personal and business computing. The company offers a wide range of products and services designed to empower people through great software — any time, any place and on any device.

Microsoft, Outlook, Windows Mobile, ActiveSync, Windows Server, Windows Server System, SharePoint, FrontPage, InfoPath, OneNote, Visio and Windows are either registered trademarks or trademarks of Microsoft Corp. in the United States and/or other countries.

The names of actual companies and products mentioned herein may be the trademarks of their respective owners.

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