Switching to the Mac: The Missing Manual, Mountain Lion Edition

Life with Microsoft Exchange

In the corporate world, Microsoft Exchange is the 800-pound gorilla. It’s the networking software that runs the email, address book, and calendars for hundreds or thousands of employees. All of this communicates with a central master database whose heart beats away in some closet or back room at your company’s headquarters.

For years, Macs have been second-class citizens in Corporate America. As long as they couldn’t talk to the Exchange brain, they weren’t much use outside the graphic-design department. (You could buy add-on software or muck with workarounds, but you always felt like a weirdo.)

Now, however, Exchange compatibility is built in. In the Mac’s Calendar, your company’s Exchange calendar shows up. In Contacts, your company’s names and addresses show up. In Mail, you can get all your corporate email. Best of all, this information shows up side-by-side with your own personal data, so you can have it all in one place. All the conveniences of OS X now apply to your corporate email: Spotlight, Quick Look, data detectors, and so on.

If you’re lucky—that is, if your company is using Exchange 2007 or later (Service Pack 1, Update Rollup 4 and later)—setting this up could not be easier.

Figure 8-4. In Mail Preferences, fill in your Exchange information—your email address and password—as provided by your cheerful network administrator.

Connecting to Exchange ...