The discussion in this group tends to center on the large enterprise.
:-) There are a LOT more small companies than there are large companies.
For many of my clients, this is PROBABLY (who can say with certainty?)
going to represent a burden. Most of them upgraded hardware with their
Exchange 2003 deployments, and most of them have not planned to upgrade
again within a five year window. However, I've found that my smaller
clients are much more likely to be early adopters of software updates.
They like the feature content boosts. They like the "gee-whiz" factor.
They like being able to discuss that cool new stuff on the golf course.
Etc.
To them, the end-user cost of upgrading isn't important. I don't think
that really starts showing up in most companies until they are large
enough to actually have an IT staff. They just want to stick in the disk
and go. (Generally, I get brought in later to clean that all up, but
that is another story...)
It's already tough to sell them on having multiple servers. Now, they'll
need to dedicate ANOTHER server to messaging? Even if only temporarily?
When they've already got this work-horse of a box running Exchange? Or
they have to shut down, ExMerge out their mailboxes, format, do a
disaster recovery reinstall, and ExMerge mail back in? At what cost and
risk?
I think this is one release too early. I think the big guys need the
64-bit, absolutely. And I even understand WHY Microsoft only wants a
single platform. But I just think that it is one release too soon to
require it.
I'm also concerned about some of the other changes in Exchange 12 being
too far in the enterprise direction. With the server roles, the lack of
some integration that was present before, and other additional elements
of complexity - it may become much more difficult for the small shops to
roll out. That is another thing that is just too early to tell.
Oh -- and I had this discussion with a couple of the Exchange team as
well -- it DOES NOT matter even one bit that most of the server hardware
sold today is x64 capable. Because you can't just "flip a bit" and
suddenly you are running Windows 64-bit. It requires a reinstall. Of
everything. (And don't think that you can use that to get around the
in-place upgrade issue -- it would be wrong to ass/u/me that E12 will
mount an Exchange 2003 store. Another thing we've yet to see.) And then
you have to migrate. And fix DNS. And your Outlook profiles. Etc. Maybe
more stuff -- just too early to tell.
It is a lot of details for the SMB. (And don't get me wrong -- there are
lots of really smart SMB's out there -- but there are also lots of them
that would find managing these details an impossible task.)
I can just see dozens of difficult conversations with dozens of clients
upon release. I already dread them.
M
-----Original Message-----
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
[mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Al Mulnick
Sent: Tuesday, November 15, 2005 12:00 PM
To: [email protected]
Subject: RE: [ActiveDir] Microsofts Exchange Server 12 64 bit
announcement
I realize we're a bit off-topic, but...
I disagree with this being a mistake. A lot of the problems with
Exchange (I'll limit the discussion to this area, joe ;) centered around
memory addressing. It wasn't until Windows 2003 SP1 that they reversed
the recommendation to use PAE vs. not. When clustering, memory was
always a limiting factor. 64bit price differential doesn't seem to be
terribly huge, so I'm not sure what the objection is other than it may
slow down adoption for those that purchased new-ish 32bit systems and
don't want to upgrade the hardware yet. To that, I would say that
hardware is likely the least of your costs in this equation. In the
smallest of shops, that may be closer to equal in terms of costs. As you
scale up and add features, hardware is almost always the cheapest
resource in the equation.
Can you expand into why you think 64bit only would be a problem? I'd
like to at least understand this a bit better. If you need to, feel
free to drop the note off-line so we don't drift too far OT.
Al
From: "Michael B. Smith" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Reply-To: [email protected]
To: <[email protected]>
Subject: RE: [ActiveDir] Microsofts Exchange Server 12 64 bit
announcement
Date: Tue, 15 Nov 2005 10:56:36 -0500
It was made in the Exchange product team meetings with the Exchange
MVPs.
I can assure you, our reaction was not positive. I think it is a
serious mistake.
M
________________________________
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
[mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of joe
Sent: Tuesday, November 15, 2005 10:03 AM
To: [email protected]
Subject: RE: [ActiveDir] Microsofts Exchange Server 12 64 bit
announcement
Wow. I don't recall Muglia making that statement at the summit, I think
he would have been beaten up pretty bad....
"Muglia made several product announcements during his keynote address.
As part of its commitment to 64-bit computing, Microsoft has been
delivering products that are optimized for 64-bit, including the newly
released SQL Server(tm) 2005, Visual Studio(r) 2005 and Virtual Server
2005 R2. To help customers take full advantage of the power of 64-bit
computing, products including Microsoft(r) Exchange Server "12,"
Windows Compute Cluster Server 2003, Windows Server(tm) "Longhorn"
Small Business Server, and Microsoft's infrastructure solution for
midsize businesses, code-named "Centro," will be exclusively 64-bit and
optimized for x64 hardware. In a future update release to Microsoft's
upcoming Windows Server "Longhorn" operating system, code-named Windows
Server "Longhorn" R2, customers will see the complete transition to
64-bit-only hardware, while still benefiting from 32-bit and 64-bit
application compatibility. For the highest-scale application and
database workloads, Windows Server on 64-bit Itanium-based systems will
continue to be the premier choice for customers for years to come."
The LH SBS package is pretty funny too... Imagine going into all of
those small companies and telling them they don't have a choice but to
buy a new server when they want to get the new security enhancements.
I hope MS decides to support K3 and Exchange K3 for some time. Though I
am already seeing a huge reduced emphasis and making K3 work right now.
Any good non-GNU message/collaboration apps out there? Something with
maybe a BSD license?
joe
________________________________
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
[mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Brian Desmond
Sent: Tuesday, November 15, 2005 9:03 AM
To: [email protected]
Subject: RE: [ActiveDir] Microsofts Exchange Server 12 64 bit
announcement
Where'd you find that?
Thanks,
Brian Desmond
[EMAIL PROTECTED] <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
c - 312.731.3132
________________________________
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
[mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Martin Tuip
Sent: Tuesday, November 15, 2005 3:33 AM
To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]; [EMAIL PROTECTED];
[email protected]
Subject: [ActiveDir] Microsofts Exchange Server 12 64 bit announcement
This just in:
"As some of you are attending IT Forum in Barcelona, I want to make
sure those of you who are not get the latest updates. At IT Forum,
Microsoft will announce broad support for 64 bit across many of its
product lines.
As part of that announcement we will be announcing that Exchange 12
will be 64 bit only. This is a significant decision for us and it is
one that we did not make lightly. Many of you and your customers may
have questions about why Exchange 12 will be 64 bit only and the mail
below provides some background on the factors that lead to this
decision and also the benefits from 64 bit that we are seeing in our
early dog food & TAP deployments."
Martin Tuip
MVP Exchange
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