Microsoft Exchange 2010 Beta Release

Microsoft Exchange 2010 beta has been released for evaluation  It can be downloaded from here: http://www.microsoft.com/exchange/2010/en/us/try-it.aspx

Some of the new features of Exchange 2010 include:

Voicemail: Voicemail has been available through Exchange and Unified Comms since Exchange Server 2007, however Exchange 2010 brings with it the ability to preview your voicemails in text format.  Just as you would read an email, you can now read your voicemails so you know if it worth while keeping or listening to them.

RBAC: Role Based Access Control allows IT Administrators to delegate tasks to individual users or groups of users.  This is designed to free up Helpdesk time.  An IT Admin can delegate all sorts of tasks such as distribution lists, email tracking and email discovery.

Cloud: Exchange 2010 has increased ability to transfer partially or totally in to the cloud.  This enables groups of mailboxes to be located in the cloud while some are still held on the local server.

Archiving: As Compliance becomes a more important factor every day, Exchange 2010 has built-in archiving capabilities.  This is to remove the need to archive to a pst file located on the local computer.  Users do not see the difference between an archived email and a regular email.  Compliance officers are then able to locate all email as it is still held centrally in the Exchange Server.

Compliance: To further assist with compliance and Data Protection, Exchange 2010 now enables a suitably privileged user to be able to search mailboxes at a granular level and across multiple mailboxes.  This user can then place immediate legal holds on any suspicious emails.

I/O: To minimise overhead and assist IT departments to be more energy efficient; Exchange 2007 reduced I/O activity by 70% on previous versions.  Exchange 2010 has now increased this further to 85%.  This results in less writing to disk and faster responses.