Exchange Hosting Reviews

Autonomy Corporation, a leader in infrastructure software for the enterprise, today announced “Put FAST in the Past,” a rescue program for current Microsoft FAST Search customers and OEM partners.  The purpose of the program is to enable customers and software vendors that depend and develop on platforms and operating systems other than Microsoft – such as Unix and Linux – to take advantage of Autonomy’s advanced and comprehensive enterprise search technology.  This isn’t a plan for everything but certainly hits the spot for a certain kind of user.

In February, Microsoft FAST announced it plans to “end-of-life” Unix and Linux versions of its enterprise search product.  As of December 31, 2010 Microsoft FAST will discontinue mainstream and extended support for 17 product versions.  These imminent events are causing disruption to enterprise customers with deployed applications and to software vendors who embedded end-of-life technology components.

Autonomy isn’t standing still and has initiated this program to help ease transition. Here are some of the helpful bullet points of what the system will do:

• Autonomy will match an organization’s Microsoft FAST license implementation with like-for-like capability on all platforms – for 50% of the organization’s original license fee for orders placed before December 31.
• Autonomy will provide conceptual search and a Sharepoint connector free of charge
• Autonomy’s Microsoft FAST to IDOL migration tool will index an organization’s data, enabling a seamless migration
• Autonomy IDOL enterprise search can be used transparently from within Microsoft applications including Word, SharePoint, etc., providing end users with a seamless and easy transition

Odyssey Software, Inc., a provider of enterprise-class mobile device management products, today announced the availability of Athena™ for BlackBerry® Enterprise Server, an add-on for BlackBerry Enterprise Server 5.0 and BlackBerry® Enterprise Server Express 5.0. The just-released product provides comprehensive interactive support tools that can be used to assist users, or identify and resolve issues, on BlackBerry® 4.3 and newer smartphones - directly from the BlackBerry Enterprise Server or BlackBerry Enterprise Server Express console.

Athena also supports touch-enabled smartphones including the BlackBerry Storm, BlackBerry Storm 2 and the new BlackBerry® Torch™ running the BlackBerry 6 operating system. In addition, Odyssey Software is currently developing support for the BlackBerry PlayBook.

Ukrainian national channel TRK Ukraina has purchased a Quantel Enterprise sQ server-based production system and Mission integrated MAM system to be used for its new 24-hour news channel, Novyny, and handle production for the broadcaster’s soccer channel, TRK Football.

The sQ server at the center of the system is configured with 1200 hours of storage and supports 60 sQ View and sQ Cut editors running inside TRK’s Annova Systems OpenMedia newsroom computer system. Fifteen Final Cut Pro editors are also fully integrated into the Quantel workflow. Ingest and playout is handled by sQ Record and sQ Play applications, with sQ Load handling file imports.

GFI Software, a provider for small and medium-sized enterprises, today announced the release of GFI MailArchiver™ 2011, the latest version of its email archiving software. This major release upgrade offers significant new functionality such as automatic archive management and a faster, richer search.
GFI MailArchiver is becoming a good source for email management problems on Exchange Server. It helps administrators maintain an archive of all corporate email correspondence, significantly reduce the demands on the Exchange server, manage and reduce the company’s dependence on PST files and also meet a growing number of regulations on compliance, eDiscovery and other legislation. The new version of GFI MailArchiver offers several new capabilities that promote ease of use and take the burden off of administrators, including a web interface that transforms email backup and restore into a self-service activity.

“MailArchiver solves the storage problem that is exacerbated by Exchange 2010, and makes email backup and restore a snap – as simple as dragging and dropping an email in Outlook. With organisations upgrading from Exchange 2003 / 2007 to Exchange 2010 they will enjoy the new features of Exchange but they will miss Single Instance Storage which means that their storage costs will increase considerably. With MailArchiver 2010, users will put SIS back into Exchange thus reducing the need for expensive storage and also solving their PST management problems at the same time,” said Brian Azzopardi, product manager, GFI Software.

“The improved features in this new version all funnel to the central goals of improving the user experience and making life easier for network administrators, while maintaining our market leadership with a feature-rich solution at a great price point.”

Coyote Point Systems, a provider of application delivery and acceleration solutions for the small to medium enterprise, today announced that the company has completed Microsoft’s qualification program for hardware Application Delivery Controllers, which are now required to ensure customers can achieve top performance with Exchange Server 2010. Good going guys.

Several changes in Exchange 2010 force organizations to deploy a robust hardware load balancing appliance. Mailbox and directory connections are now handled by the Client Access server role, which means both external and internal Outlook connections must be load balanced across the array of Client Access servers in a deployment to achieve adequate performance and fault tolerance. Coyote Point has completed validation testing, and Microsoft has recommended Coyote Point’s Equalizer GX for deployment with Exchange Server 2010. Coyote Point’s Application Delivery Controller with intelligent load balancing and SSL offloading easily scales to improve Exchange 2010 performance and ensure a better overall user experience.

“Coyote Point is very proud to have been selected by Microsoft as an Exchange 2010 TAP member, and even more so to have made the cut as one of Microsoft’s approved load balancing providers,” said Bill Kish, CEO/CTO and “alpha coyote” of Coyote Point Systems. “We recognize that Microsoft applications comprise the majority of IT deployments. Coyote Point will always strive to ensure that our Application Delivery Controller solutions work optimally with Microsoft technology.”

“One of the great things about Equalizer is its flexibility to accelerate and ensure high availability of a variety of applications,” said Mark Hoffmann, Technical Marketing for Coyote Point. “Our experience with Microsoft products ensures customers will have core capabilities like SSL offload and connection persistence, and complementary features such as content switching, responders and virtualization optimization that they can use to custom-fit a solution to their needs.”

Motorola has announced the launch of Motorola Flipout, a stylishly square and compact smartphone, and Motorola Defy, a slim, pocket-able and ‘life proof’ model.

Motorola Mobility, a subsidiary of the telecom leader, said the two models will be launched during the holiday season. Flipout runs on Android 2.1 and features an innovative square pivot design that opens to reveal a five-row Qwerty keypad with a separate row for numeric keys.

Both phones will include increased Exchange server functionality thanks to the Droid OS and other service upgrades.

Mark Smith, a Practice Manager for the Capax | Microsoft consulting practice, has been officially certified by the Microsoft Exchange MCA Review Board this month and is the first Microsoft Certified Architect (MCA): Exchange 2010 . The highest certification within Microsoft Learning, is achieved only after official review by Microsoft’s board in a multi-hour presentation and question-and-answer style review process. The purpose is to measure a consultant’s business understanding, operational knowledge, executive-appropriate communications, budgeting, design, project management and leadership skills. These competencies are considered to be critical by Microsoft, to ensure the success of Microsoft Exchange 2010 deployment projects in achieving business goals. Only Microsoft Certified Masters (MCMs):  Exchange 2010 are eligible to be certified at the MCA: Exchange 2010 level.

Here is what those involved have to say about the proceedings:

Jerry Hawk, Capax Senior Partner and CTO

“Capax Global is proud that Mark Smith has achieved the first MCA recognition for Exchange 2010 in the world. This continues the tradition of achievement by Capax consultants, and is recognition of the expertise that Capax consultants offer on Microsoft technology. Our clients engage us for all types of Exchange implementations, and can do so with full confidence that they are receiving the best advice, project planning, and deployment available.”

Mark Smith, AP at Capax Global

“I am thrilled to have received the MCA: Exchange 2010 certification.  Throughout my career I have had the benefit of working and leading some great teams in  the best IT shops, on all types of Exchange projects. These experiences helped me to be prepared to address the questions of the Board, and to pass on my first attempt. I’m grateful to all of the IT teams with whom I have worked over the years.”