I think it is pretty clear that most of the feature content in Exchange 2013 was for Office 365. Including the heavy integration between Lync and SharePoint in all of Wave 15.
The on-premises new feature content was pretty small. From: [email protected] [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of Ryan Finnesey Sent: Tuesday, May 21, 2013 12:59 PM To: [email protected] Subject: RE: [Exchange] Exchange On-Premise - Dying Skill? Do you think there is the risk that Microsoft will slow the release of Exchange on-Premise and focus on Office 365? I know SharePoint releases for cloud first and then on- Premise. I just learned is that Azure is based on a "different" version of Hyper-V that we do not have access to on- Premise. From: [email protected]<mailto:[email protected]> [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of Michael B. Smith Sent: Monday, May 20, 2013 5:24 PM To: [email protected]<mailto:[email protected]> Subject: RE: [Exchange] Exchange On-Premise - Dying Skill? I'm not your average Exchange admin. That being said, I don't see any reduction in requirement for my services. I do admit that I have expanded to include Office 365. But that was just to help some of my clients to evaluate Office 365. Only one (of over 100) has made the switch to Office 365. I also expanded to push System Center. And that was a mistake. I already had enough work, and now I have too much. From: [email protected]<mailto:[email protected]> [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of Tanya Pinetti Sent: Monday, May 20, 2013 4:04 PM To: [email protected]<mailto:[email protected]> Subject: [Exchange] Exchange On-Premise - Dying Skill? So I'm in this part of my life where I'm trying to decide if I should start looking at another IT skill to be a subject matter expert at. I'm not a Master level in Exchange like some of you, but I think I can rate my Exchange skills as above average. After all, I've been working on Exchange since the 5.5 days. With Office 365 really catching on and Microsoft heavily promoting it, I'm starting to feel that the Exchange on-premise skill is a dying skill. I took a look at the TechEd 2013 tracks and they're favoring Office 365. I then searched around the job search sites and could hardly find any Exchange jobs. If I were an IT manager, I would choose Office 365 as well as it just makes more sense than having on-premise hardware and maintenance. I went to a local workshop and by a show of hands, the majority of the attendees were either on and going to Office 365. I might be just paranoid, but I'm starting to think I should start looking at another IT skill. What are your thoughts about this?
