Overview

Selecting the clients to use in a deployment is a critical factor in the overall success of many projects. Many users today are happily using "old" client technology, early versions of the clients issued with Exchange 4.0 or 5.0 or the original Outlook clients. They probably aren't aware of the latest and greatest features available in Outlook 2000, nor could they care less.

Upgrading or deploying new clients is painful for all concerned with the operation for the simple reason that desktop upgrades directly affect users. It also requires physical intervention at multiple desktops or the deployment of automated tools to assist in the upgrade. By comparison, upgrading servers, even through the massive changes in Windows 2000 and Exchange 2000, are an exercise that doesn't take much effort, purely because of the massive difference between the numbers of clients and servers in any deployment. This doesn't downgrade the obvious work involved in upgrading tens of servers or the impact server downtime has on users, but the sheer number of desktop clients often means that great cost is incurred for each change in desktop technology. For these reasons, it makes sense to arrive at an understanding of client technology that's available today. Once you have that understanding, you can then assess which technology is right for your deployment, and deploy the clients with the intention that they will be upgraded much less frequently than your servers.

MAPI remains the single most important client access protocol in terms of sheer functionality.