I was invited to attend the first meeting of our local Microsoft Exchange Server User Group. Nice meeting, with some interesting topics.
Peter O’Dowd (Blade) started with an introduction to "Exchange Server 2003 Advanced Security", a Microsoft internal “Exchange Security Best Practices” course Blade have been developing with the Exchange product group in Microsoft, Redmond. Apparently this hot material is not available elsewhere.
Then Rod Drury, (AfterMail) was there to talk about the product his company is developing. Really nice. We have talked about it before but when you see it working is another thing. In a few words, it implements a relational database where message information is stored, including metadata, attachement indices, everything and anything about any e-mail sent or received within an organisation. User can then search this data through a web interface, including extracting data in XML format and more.
Rod talked about the upcoming features in AfterMail v3 and after, and I have to say it is a must read. He was also happy because of its first US based client, so congratulations on that!
Last, Nathan Mercer (Microsoft NZ) talked to everyone about the Exchange Server roadmap, a few of the upcoming features on Exchange 12, over-the-air synchronisation, and more.
The meeting was nice, and I had a chance to talk a little bit with Nic Wise, a Microsoft MVP (.Net Compact Framework), chat with Rod about my future plans and of course drool over his Segway.
