Microsoft has made available for download the first item in a line-up of products associated with Office 2010, formerly codenamed Office 14. The public Beta of Exchange Server 2010, codename Exchange 14, is now up for grabs, opening the way for the next generation of office system solutions, which will follow with development milestones set to launch in the third quarter of 2009, as part of a Technical Preview Program. Exchange 2010 is the successor of Exchange 2007 released back in 2007 concomitantly with the GA of Windows Vista.

“Exchange 2010 ushers in the next generation of Microsoft unified communications software as the first server designed from inception to work both on-premises and as an online service,” explained Rajesh Jha, corporate vice president of Exchange at Microsoft. “This release raises the bar with new archiving and end-user innovations that will help companies save money and employees save time.”

Microsoft informed that Exchange 2010 would be released to manufacturing, and subsequently made available to customers, in the second half of 2009. The rest of the Office 2010 System will follow in the first half of 2010. No specific availability deadlines were provided by the Redmond company.

Exchange 2010 is tested not only as a standalone product, but also as a hosted service. Customers will be able to opt for either the on-premise solution, or take advantage of Exchange 2010 in the Cloud. There are over five million testers already playing with the Exchange 2010 hosted service, and Microsoft estimates that interest in the on-premise product will also be consistent, the company looking for over 1 million participants to the Beta process.

The Redmond company emphasized that, in combination with Outlook 2010, Exchange 2010 would deliver a number of features to users, enhancing the communications experience. With MailTips, users are safeguarded against common mistakes such as sending sensitive information to large groups or even leaking data to contacts outside the company. Voice Mail Preview permits voice mail to be previewed as text in Outlook. Ignore Conversation is nothing more than an email mute option that allows for irrelevant strings of content to be easily ignored. Conversation View is set up to cut down inbox clutter as much as possible by centralizing emails with similar topics into separate conversations. In addition, Exchange 2010 will also offer Call Answering Rules and Consistent Experience.

“The line between home and work has blurred, and people want more choice and flexibility in how, where and when they work,” said Chris Capossela, senior vice president of the Information Worker Product Management Group at Microsoft. “With the next wave of Microsoft Office-related products, people will be more productive across the PC, phone and browser, IT professionals can choose to deploy and manage servers on-premises or from the cloud, and developers get more opportunities to build innovative solutions and grow their business.”


Exchange Server 2010 Public Beta is available for download here.