Microsoft's Information Exchange:
Enterprise Messaging

July 1994

Microsoft has been on the road all spring, from Chairman Bill to the sales force, telling the enterprise messaging story. Microsoft wants to be a major player in the Workgroup, Groupware, and Client/Server markets and all of those require strong underpinnings, with robust communications services, excellent interfaces for users and administrators, and the ability to treat messages not only as unstructured text, but rather as elements in a data base, capable of being handled in more structured and interesting ways.

Microsoft started out last Fall by announcing an Information Exchange strategy, which would support customers’ client/server architectures. This allowed Microsoft to place itself firmly in the enterprise computing business, in competition with Novell and Lotus, but also in both competition and in cooperation (as a sometime partner) with IBM, Digital, and HP.

In essence, Microsoft has packaged up its entire messaging strategy in a new box, with shiny wrappings, and calls it Information Exchange. This includes both things you already knew about and brand new stuff which is just coming out. The idea is to move from the old world of host-based EMail (which is still very much alive and well), through the current world of LAN-based systems, to the future. All of this against a background where EMail has been growing about 27% a year -- 227% expected over the 5 years from 1992 to 1997, according to research house IDC.

Messaging has become doubly important because so much of the "new computing" is messaging based. Think Workflow, Document Management, Time Management (Calendaring and Scheduling), Conferencing, and EDI. In fact, the entire Client/Server world is messaging-based. We are in the midst of trying to re-engineer our businesses for the future and yet the systems we are building upon are not necessarily appropriate to meet our newly defined needs.

The architecture for Microsoft’s Information Exchange is, of course, Client/Server based, although it can also function in a shared file environment for smaller workgroups. It assumes a "fat" client, which will include not only the interface and the back-end API’s, but also significant processing for messaging, scheduling forms, and information sharing. Microsoft has been talking about this architecture for about four months, since the EMA (Electronic Mail Association) conference in April, progressively disclosing Microsoft Exchange in briefings and public disclosures. At Spring COMDEX, Bill Gates even demoed the Universal Client (and, of course, some of its back-end server) during his keynote.

Now the codes names (EMS, Enterprise Messaging System, Touchdown) can all go away, and we can move to the Real Thing.

The Server will be concerned mainly with Message transfer and Directory services plus (this is the new news) an Information Store.

The Microsoft Exchange information store is a robust internal data base which can be located on the server, on the client, or on both. It can be accessed via MAPI or ODBC and it permits Microsoft to offer functionality similar to that offered by Lotus in its very popular Notes groupware product, including group files, replication, and support for building custom applications.

The Universal Client looks like the Chicago interface and Microsoft will include it as part of Chicago when that product ships. Microsoft intends to use the Chicago interface to provide an Information Center under the Information Exchange architecture. The user would be offered a variety of views of his data and navigational tools to view and process his work.

Microsoft assumes that users would use this environment much in the same way Notes is used to create a rich set of user-driven applications to provide business solutions for group work. This assumes that many custom applications will need to be written (something that has taken Notes years to encourage). For instance, in the Introduction white paper, Microsoft suggests customers might consider such applications as:

• A customer support system

• A customer account tracking system

• A sales tracking system

• A product information library

• A market and general information newswire specific to your customers and competitors.

Microsoft will hope to hasten the process by being compatible with everything, by offering excellent mail services and tying to every conceivable mail system, and by understanding the need for a range of development tools to support the widest possible range of potential developers.

Microsoft Exchange is supported on DOS, Windows, Macintosh, and Unix platforms, and on AppleTalk and NetWare networks.

Clients

MS-DOS
16-bit Windows (3.1, 3.11)
32-bit Windows (Chicago (integrated), NT)
MacintoshUnix
(HP/UX and Solaris)

MS-DOS and Windows (all versions) will be in the box with Exchange at first ship. Macintosh will be available shortly thereafter. Unix clients will take about six months longer.

Servers

NT Server

Intel-only at first ship, including SMP. RISC-based versions, including AXP, MIPS, and PowerPC in 1995.

Network Protocols:

TCP/IP
IPX/SPX
NetBui
AppleTalk
OSI/TP4

Network Operating Systems:

LanManager
NetWare
Pathworks
IBM LANServer

Banyan will be added at a later date.

Microsoft intends Microsoft Exchange and the entire Information Exchange family of products to be highly customizable. A broad spectrum of tools are available for application customization or development by anyone from users to professional programmers.

User Development Spectrum

Developer Type	Tool
End User	Templates, Wizards
Power User	Visual Basic, Access
Programmer	Visual Basic
ISV	C++ (MAPI)

Wizards generate Visual Basic code so power users and programmers can do further development and refinement on the prototypes built by end users based on their business knowledge.

Also, menus and toolbars may be customized by adding access to utilities and add-on programs and there is an extensible forms development environment.

The main descriptive vehicle for Microsoft Exchange (at least initially) seems to be a series of White Papers. Microsoft has published the first, an Introduction. Five more are scheduled to follow, on The Client (the Universal Client, we’d imagine), Scheduling, System Administration, The Server, and Applications Development. Together, they are intended to serve as (1) a description of the Microsoft Exchange offering (2) an educational piece on why customers should prefer an integrated messaging system (3) a marketing piece on the benefits of Microsoft Exchange.

What seems to be missing are the details. What analysts call the "feeds and speeds." Exactly what is Microsoft Exchange, in each of its pieces. That, we suspect, will be revealed in the fullness of time.

In the meantime, it’s important to remember this:

• Microsoft Information Exchange is the umbrella; Exchange is a product implementation under the umbrella. That suggests more products to follow.

• Microsoft is subsuming big pieces of previously separate applications into the operating system. This is a mixed blessing. On the one hand, integration makes life easier for users. On the other, it means less choice for users and less space in the market for competitors.

• Microsoft offers an incomplete cross-platform strategy. If you’re an OS/2 user and you wish to remain one, Microsoft Exchange leaves you out in the cold. It’s also not clear how host users get to play -- except by downsizing off their hosts, which not everyone is ready to do. But everyone will be offering an integrated messaging solution, from Lotus and Novell to IBM and Oracle, although in most cases the integration will occur a level above the operating system.

Microsoft expects to offer a final Beta of Exchange between now and the end of this year. It will be made widely available for testing and pilots. First ship will occur sometime in the first half of 1995. Then expect the groupware race to heat up, way up, especially if this solution is as well integrated and on track as Microsoft is predicting.

Comments or Questions: Send Email to opinions@wohl.com

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Entire contents © 1994 by Amy D. Wohl. All rights reserved. Reproduction of this publication in any form without prior written permission is forbidden.