Choosing a Client for Exchange Server

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In a philosophical sense, choosing a client for Exchange Server is easy. Outlook 2000 is the most current version of the Outlook client; it provides the greatest amount of functionality, and it is designated by Microsoft as the official client for Exchange Server. Outlook 2000 is bundled with Microsoft Office 2000 and with Exchange 2000 Server. Although Exchange 2000 Server supports Exchange Client and Schedule+, they are no longer being enhanced with new features and cannot access all of the services that Exchange 2000 Server provides. Standard Internet e-mail clients also miss a great deal of the functionality that Exchange offers, but they are fast enough to be used efficiently over the Internet.

As they say, however, your mileage may vary. You may have a large installed base of Exchange Client users, and upgrading them can be a significant administrative task. Some or all of the people in your organization may already have an email program that they like and, rather than going through the pain of change, may choose to forgo the advanced features available with Outlook. Any of these factors might contribute to a decision to support non-Outlook clients as part of your Exchange environment or to use Outlook Web Access.

You may also have such a widespread mix of client platforms that you need to use the most generic client possible: the Outlook Web Access client. Or you may need to use OWA to service the messaging needs of some of your users and use the complete Outlook product for other users. Client machines can also use standard Internet POP3 and OWA clients to access your Exchange Inbox over the Internet.

The bottom line is that Outlook 2000 will allow you to take advantage of all that Exchange 2000 has to offer, but other preexisting clients, while potentially missing some newer features, are supported and work with Exchange 2000 Server as well.