Exchange 2010 !!
The beta for Exchange Server 2010 is now public. Here’s a look at some of the new features that are designed to save you time.
Exchange 2010 aims to deflate swollen inboxes and to make sure you don’t lose any I-have-got-to-jump-on-that mail.
The team has focused on the three Ps: productivity, or getting the most out of e-mail; protection, or making sure e-mail chatter doesn’t leak into the wrong hands; and performance, or making sure the server doesn’t let you down when you’re trying to move mail from folder to folder. The result is a product that is designed to make life a little bit easier in the face of nonstop inbox inundation.
Ignore Thread button/Conversation View
All mail will be grouped by conversation in Exchange 2010. That means all e-mail threads that are related will appear as one mail in your inbox (you will be notified when the thread is updated). This feature is already built into Exchange but is mostly unused. In Exchange 2010, it gets even better. Rather than presenting e-mail item by item, Conversation View groups messages and instantly cuts down on clutter.
Conversation View also helps cut down on clutter with the Ignore Conversation button. When you quickly realize that a conversation doesn’t matter to you, click Ignore Conversation. All future e-mails from that conversation will automatically be deleted. No need to waste any more time reading messages that aren’t important.
Making E-mail ‘Oops Proof’
Exchange’s MailTips will help make e-mail “oops proof,” or at least will limit the number of accidental messages sent. For example, when you’re about to send an e-mail to a huge group of people, you’ll get a quick reminder before you click Send. A message will also let you know if the e-mail is going to anyone external, so you don’t accidentally forward sensitive info.
MailTips also will cut down on time spent composing e-mails that have no value. Notifications will let you know when a recipient is OOF (out of the office) or an attachment is too large to be delivered.
Other Timesavers
Exchange has a host of other tools to help boost productivity, such as the voice mail speech-to-text preview.
Calendar sharing is another useful feature that gets an upgrade in Exchange 2010. You now will be able to share calendars externally with business partners or with friends and family.
And the frustration at receiving an information rights management (IRM) e-mail—the ones that warn “Do Not Forward” in Outlook—is gone. Before, Outlook Web Access users weren’t able to read those messages without installing an application on their client machine. Now, Outlook Web Access will natively support reading and composing rights-managed mail.