Microsoft strategy shift casts fog over Exchange

By John Fontana
Network World, 06/25/01

ATLANTA - Less than nine months after releasing Exchange 2000 and its highly touted Web Storage System, Microsoft is reducing the role it had assigned the platform as a key development environment. The move will force IT departments to re-evaluate application design.

The about-face means IT executives building applications on top of the WSS, a universal repository for data, will have to design those applications so they can run against the new data store Microsoft is developing for its .Net platform.

But company officials say those new needs are unclear because Microsoft's .Net infrastructure and programming model is still in its early days of development.

"If they make changes and we have to rewrite code, it will have a significant impact on our organization because we write heaps of code on Exchange," says Bob Fish, senior technical analyst for Target. "It could make it more difficult to upgrade and we might have to skip a version while we get everything converted."

He says Target is rewriting code for such applications as expense reporting and training registration as part of a move from Exchange 5.5 to 2000.

Other companies are likely to have the same concerns. With only about 13% of Exchange users having migrated to Exchange 2000, according to a recent survey by the Radicati Group, that means a major portion of current Exchange shops will have to consider the implications of a new data store as they deploy Exchange 2000 and develop applications.

"The reason Microsoft feels powered to [develop a new data store] is that there has not been much development on Exchange," says Matt Cain, an analyst with Meta Group.

To provide a data repository for .Net, Microsoft's focus is now on Yukon, the code name for the next version of SQL Server. Yukon is being developed as a universal data store for structured, unstructured and semistructured data that would support Web services and XML.

Although the completion of Yukon is two to three years away, the wheels of change are turning. Last December, Yukon was cited as the reason Microsoft killed a set of highly anticipated Exchange tools for supporting the offline use of collaborative applications. And initial test versions of Yukon will be sent to select early adopters by year-end, according to sources.

"Yes, it is true we are de-emphasizing the Web Storage System," says Paul Flessner, senior vice president of Microsoft's .Net Enterprise Servers. "It is not a stretch to think messaging, development tools, data models and programming models will converge, and Yukon is a part of that. Exchange data will transition [into Yukon], but how much of the existing API set we can preserve is still something we are in the process of sorting out. We will be cautious."

That means some WSS-based applications will easily make the conversion to Yukon while others will not, a message Microsoft has already delivered to its independent software vendors.

At its annual Tech-Ed conference last week, Microsoft highlighted Yukon during the opening keynote address and struck references to the WSS in all partner and Microsoft press releases and printed material for conference sessions. The company has nearly scrubbed its Web site clean of references to the WSS.

Company officials say Yukon will include Common Language Runtime (CLR), a set of interfaces required to run Web services, which are chunks of code that can be stitched together into applications. Sources say Yukon will be branded as SQL Server.Net to fall in line with Windows.Net, which will ship early next year and also include CLR.

"Think about the database being a good place to store and handle," Flessner says. "Since it doesn't matter where the XML data came from, you can start to see the database as a universal file system."

In that scenario, Exchange reverts to its pedigree, according to Microsoft officials, supporting application workflow processes with its built-in workflow engine and providing services such as e-mail and instant messaging, calendars and task assignments.

"Clearly Microsoft has to provide an easy transition to the new store to keep users from getting too alarmed," Meta's Cain says. "We tell users they can develop on Exchange 2000 but make sure it's form-based apps with a quick [return on investment] because things are going to change."

Microsoft officials had the same advice.

"If you focus development on Exchange, look for quick ROI but for the future start looking at .Net," says Earnie Glazener, product manager for Exchange.

Microsoft strategy shift casts fog over Exchange

Related Links