Chapter 1: A Brief History of Exchange

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Overview

All applications have their own unique history, which has influenced their design and functionality, and Exchange is no different. The events that have shaped Exchange include Microsoft's corporate directions and strategy, hardware performance and capability, the needs of customers, the actions of competitors, and the evolution of the Internet. All of these inputs have helped to bring Exchange to the shape it is today. You can expect that similar events will drive future development.

Predicting the future is always difficult, especially when computer software or hardware is involved. Given what we know of Microsoft's strategic direction for Exchange, you can divide the history of Exchange-past and future-into three generations of product. Microsoft has delivered two product generations, and the third will not arrive in fully functional form until 2006 at the earliest.

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