The Evolution of Exchange Clients

The April 2006 issue of Windows IT Pro magazine (and also to be in the May issue of “Exchange & Outlook Administrator”) features a special supplement entitled “A Decade of Exchange: 1996-2006” that contains an article written by me (“The Evolution of Exchange Clients”).  The article title is somewhat of a misnomer (not my original title!) as the content is really focused on the evolution of development technologies for both Exchange and Outlook, but since the magazine is not developer oriented I can see the reasoning behind the title change. 

Here’s the introductory paragraph from my article:

Microsoft Exchange Server has had a long and varied history as a messaging and collaborative solutions platform. From the early groundwork laid by Exchange Server 4.0 in 1996 to the upcoming Exchange 12, in-house developers and Independent Software Vendors (ISVs) have leveraged a range of different technologies to extend Microsoft’s flagship groupware offering.  Having lived through many back-end server APIs, mail client customization solutions, and Web application designers, developers and customers alike have seen the best and the worst.

The entire supplement is available for free in pdf format:

http://www.windowsitpro.com/go/decadeofexchange.pdf

Other articles in the supplement:

• “Working With Exchange Has Been A Blast!” – Tony Redmond
• “The Evolution of Exchange Hardware” – Pierre Bijaoui
• “The Evolution of Mobile Devices” – Paul Robichaux
• “Ten Years of Outlook Web Access” – Kevin Laahs
• “Changing Times, Changing Protocols” – Kieran McCorry