While Microsoft Exchange still has a dominant market share, it is
currently facing the heat from a host of new upstarts and
traditional competitors. Old warhorses such as IBM have undertaken
a series of new initiatives, while new open source and SaaS
upstarts are challenging the hold that Microsoft has traditionally
enjoyed in this market. Zimbra, a player in the open source server
software space for e-mail and collaboration recently announced that
it had reached 50 million paid mailboxes—growth the company
has achieved in less than four years. Traditional rival IBM, with
its Lotus Notes Traveler software, is also pushing the levels of
competition through its Lotus Notes Traveler software—which
is a push mail offering providing quick access to e-mail through
mobile phones. Similarly, Cisco—traditionally a long-time
Microsoft partner—is taking a shot at this market with its
enterprise SaaS-based e-mail service, WebEx e-mail.
With new competition emerging from the cloud and traditional rivals
offering more features, Microsoft is pulling out all stops in its
quest to hold on to its dominant position. And if you analyze
Exchange 2010, you will realize that this version not only gives
Microsoft a huge opportunity to consolidate its place as the
dominant vendor in the messaging space, but more importantly gives
the company an equal opportunity to play in the cloud. This means
that enterprises can use Exchange 2010 as a service through the
Hosted Exchange or the Business Productivity Online suite, use it
via the traditional installed on-premises model, or consume it
through a hybrid model.
Organizations that are
consuming Exchange using the traditional on-premise model can
choose the cloud model for their future deployments. “With
Exchange 2010, it is possible for organizations to have a hybrid
cloud deployment with a single management console. You can even
move mailboxes to and from the cloud using the Exchange Management
console. This flexible deployment option can help enterprises save
costs by over 50 percent,” explains Amit Mehta, Director -
UC, Microsoft India.
Dabbling with the Cloud
This transition of Microsoft is best summed up by research firm,
Gartner, in its report on Microsoft Exchange 2010 which states:
“Exchange 2010 represents both the beginning of the end of
the premises-based e-mail era, and the dawn of the cloud-based
e-mail era.”
With several low-cost competitors snapping at its heels,
Microsoft’s hybrid strategy is a win-win one as it allows the
company to protect its customer base in the on-premise
model—while simultaneously giving customers the choice to
migrate to a new cloud-based model.
Besides the flexibility in deployment, Microsoft has also made it
possible for enterprises to use low-cost SATA disks instead of the
conventional SAN architecture.
Wipro is piloting Exchange 2010, and believes that the low-cost
SATA drives have given it a low-cost storage deployment
alternative. “From an overall cost and operational point of
view, Exchange 2010 will help us save significantly on
storage-related costs,” says Madhusudhan Mendu, General
Manager- IT, Wipro.
Mobile push
In Exchange 2010, users can initiate chat within the browser
window, and also have a text preview of voice mail. To further
attract users, Microsoft is touting in-built capabilities such as
archival, anti-spam and compliance software that would normally
require enterprises to purchase third-party software.
Administrators can also use the Active Directory Rights Management
Services feature to assign usage policies that define how a
specific person or group can use rights-protected content.
With Exchange 2010, Microsoft is also aiming at the open source
e-mail messaging market in India. “Many Indian SMBs that are
using open source messaging solutions are still struggling with
integration and mobility issues. With a hosted pay-per-use model of
Exchange 2010, we believe we can make inroads into this
market,” says Mehta.
By focusing on the troika of cost, mobility and security, Microsoft
is hoping that enterprise customers will take the bait at a time
where upgrading is clearly not a priority.