Overview

• Overview of Microsoft Exchange Server

• Working with Exchange Server

• Working with Outlook 2003

• Exchange ActiveSync 3.7

The End Result

By the end of this chapter, you ll have a solid understanding of Microsoft Exchange Server and the related client application, Microsoft Outlook. Although Exchange and Outlook are commonly thought of simply as e-mail applications (server and client), you ll learn in this chapter they have a broad range of capabilities that enable and support communication throughout the organization.

Overview of Microsoft Exchange Server

Microsoft Exchange Server is a feature of both the Standard and Premium editions of Windows Small Business Server 2003 (SBS). In this section, we ll look at exactly what Exchange Server is and what it can do for your organization. In the following section, we ll actually walk through configuring and managing Exchange Server.

Microsoft has alternately positioned Exchange Server as a simple e-mail server application and as a communication and collaboration tool. The reality lies somewhere in the middle. While you can use Exchange Server as a collaboration tool, it s fair to say it s a communications tool more than anything else. Collaboration in SBS is probably best handled by SharePoint Services, which we ll discuss later in this book. That said, Exchange Server is a server-based application that centralizes the configuration and management of e-mail, calendars, notes, contacts, distribution lists, and public folders. This provides users with a variety of communication tools that most companies come to rely upon pretty quickly once they discover the versatility and usefulness of these...