Big Changes Coming for Exchange and Outlook Pro VIP

Brian and I wanted to give you a heads up on some exciting changes in the delivery of Exchange & Outlook Pro VIP coming this summer. You’ll continue to get great Exchange and Outlook articles, plus more goodies.

All Pro VIP subscribers will be automatically upgraded to a new level of membership—at no additional cost! Exchange & Outlook Pro VIP content will be integrated into the network of Windows IT Pro resources, and as of July 1, 2008, Pro VIP articles will be available only at windowsITpro.com.

Continued ad-free online access to new articles posted every week and all existing Pro VIP archives and will still be available to you, PLUS you'll soon have access to all SQL Server Magazine and Windows IT Pro magazine content—all in one convenient Web site! You’ll also receive the VIP CD—including thousands of articles packed with solutions you need. A letter describing how this change benefits your subscription is on its way to you.

The last Pro VIP commentary will come to you on July 8. It’s a bit later than usual in order to accommodate the change over on our Web site. That commentary will point you to the new location where you’ll find your Exchange and Outlook articles. Even though we won’t be writing a monthly commentary, we’ll still be working hard behind the scenes pulling together the practical Exchange articles you expect and posting them on the Web (and in the magazines). And we’ll be blogging more. So our commentaries will simply come to you in a different package.

Exchange Admins: Thanks for Writing to Tell Us What’s Hot and What’s Not
We heard from a number of you about what’s hot and what’s not in Exchange administration. Readers were all over the map—some loved Exchange Server 2007 and others were deeply disappointed. Several folks said that they’re not inspired to migrate to Exchange 2007, and not even SP1 makes them want to move. Others said that they might make the move from Exchange Server 2003 to Exchange 2007, depending on other circumstances, such as the expiration of a hardware maintenance contract.

A network and operations supervisor with a law firm was very happy to make the move from Lotus/Domino to Outlook/Exchange 2007. As regular readers of this commentary know, our parent company, Penton Media, migrated from Lotus to Outlook, without a backward glance. I wonder if Exchange 2003 just doesn’t make folks unhappy enough to want to move on.

You’ve told us that you want to hear more about other administrators’ experiences virtualizing Exchange 2003. Administrators could use the information from other IT departments about the pitfalls, the performance issues, and the success stories to convince their own management that it’s time to implement virtualization in their organizations.

Is disaster recovery and backup hot? Always hot! Your feedback to us backs this up. (Pun intended. What a groaner.) You’re interested in information on archiving—products and best ways to do it. There are a lot of archiving products out there and you want more product reviews. We hear you. And of course you want more articles on backing up Exchange 2003.

Thanks to all of you who wrote and said you’ve really appreciated our coverage and have picked up some great information on Exchange and Outlook administration. Even though our delivery system is changing slightly in July, we’ll continue to bring you articles on the Exchange topics that matter to you. Keep sending your great ideas to Brian Winstead ([email protected]) or me ([email protected]). If you like to write and you have a solution or a script, we welcome your article proposals.

—Sheila Molnar, Exchange & Outlook Pro VIP Editor