Microsoft has taken a new modular approach to delivering development technologies tailored to the next iteration of its Exchange Server offerings. As an integral part of the Office 2010 wave, the Redmond company released in mid-April the first public Beta of Exchange Server 2010. Following the release of the Beta build, the software giant offered the software development kit for the successor of Exchange Server 2008. However, while for past releases of Exchange Microsoft delivered a single SDK, for Exchange 2010 this is no longer the case. The Redmond company has produced no less than three SDKs, each tailored to its respective technology area of Exchange Server 2010.

“The Exchange Developer Documentation team is pleased to introduce the new SDKs for Microsoft Exchange Server 2010. While the product team has been adding cool new features to use in your applications, we have been documenting those features and working to make the SDKs easier to use,” revealed Thom Randolph, documentation manager for the Exchange Developer Documentation team.

Essentially Microsoft is now offering no less than three SDKs for its next version of Exchange Server: Exchange Server 2010 Beta Web Services SDK, Exchange Server 2010 Beta Transport Agents SDK and Exchange Server 2010 Beta Backup and Restore SDK. On top of this, the company has also made available the Exchange Web Services Managed API 1.0 Beta SDK. Randolph explained that the modularization of the SDKs was considered necessary in order to simplify the development process and make it easier for developers to build on top of Exchange Server 2010.

“We’ve added substantially to the Exchange Web Services features and programmability, and added a new Delivery Agent to the transport agents repertoire, and a vCard text converter API. As Exchange administrators and developers embrace the Windows PowerShell environment, Exchange 2010 continues to add commands and features like Remote PowerShell. And last, but not least, Exchange 2010 simplifies and improves storage organization and replication technologies, which has downstream effects on backup and restore applications,” Randolph said.

Exchange Server 2010 Public Beta is available for download here.