Microsoft Exchange Server 2007 with SP1

1 Introduction

1.1 A Decade and Counting of Exchange Deployments

Microsoft shipped Exchange 4.0 in March 1996 after a gestation period of some four years. The new messaging server went through many different design phases. Microsoft grappled with the challenge of enterprises and small companies, figured out what they had to do to be competitive, understood how best to migrate users from other platforms (including their own), and achieved the necessary performance and scalability levels—albeit limited by the capabilities of Windows NT 3.51 and the available hardware.

Exchange replaced Microsoft Mail and went into immediate competition with other messaging systems such as those favored by large corporations (IBM PROFS, Digital Equipment Corporation’s ...