Mimecast, a leading supplier of cloud-based e-mail security, continuity, policy control and archiving, today announced the results of its 2010 Microsoft Exchange Infrastructure Survey.
The survey of 590 IT professionals revealed that the majority of organisations view upgrading to Microsoft Exchange 2010 to be a daunting task. As such, respondents expressed a strong desire to harness the powerful new features of Microsoft Exchange 2010 without introducing additional risk, cost and complexity during the migration process.
Atop the list of respondents' e-mail challenges was complexity, with 50% of organisations stating that they employ at least two e-mail solution providers, and 20% of organisations at least three. Furthermore, despite spam and security being a major issue for IT pros, only 10% of those who have not yet migrated (and even fewer for those who have completed a migration) view enhanced security as the number one benefit of Exchange 2010.
In fact, when asked what new features would benefit their organisation the most, enhanced availability and disaster recovery topped the list, selected by 41.7% of those who have migrated and 40.4% of those who haven't. Easier administration was also high on the list of benefits for 31.4% of those who have migrated and 26.7% of those who haven't.
Additional highlights from the research:
* Just 19.7% of those surveyed have completed their Exchange 2010 migration, while 51.9% are planning Exchange 2010 migrations within the next 12 months.
* Top reasons for having not already completed migration include limited IT resources - both workforce (26%) and infrastructure (22%).
* Despite an increase in eDiscovery and retention legislation, only 8.3% believe Exchange 2010's most valuable benefit will be simplified compliance. The most commonly cited features include enhanced availability and disaster recovery.
“Microsoft Exchange 2010 is positioned to be a pillar in most organisations' e-mail infrastructure. However, before moving to Exchange 2010, IT managers must identify and assess the additional risks that they may be introducing during the migration process, such as e-mail downtime, data loss, interruptions to policy enforcement, and cost escalation during the migration,” said Mary Kay Roberto, Senior Vice-President and General Manager of Mimecast.
“Organisations are facing a significant amount of complexity in their e-mail systems, especially during migration. Mimecast aims to simplify these complexities and others associated with managing enterprise e-mail, by utilising cloud technologies to guarantee uptime while adding additional features and services to help optimise enterprise e-mail during migration and beyond.”
About the research
The Microsoft Exchange Infrastructure Survey was conducted in November 2010 at Exchange Connections 2010 in Las Vegas and sponsored by Mimecast. Answers are derived from 590 IT professionals from organisations of all sizes. The full report can be downloaded here: {link}.
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Mimecast
Mimecast (www.mimecast.com) delivers SaaS-based enterprise e-mail management including archiving, discovery, continuity, security and policy control for companies running Microsoft Exchange or BPOS. By unifying disparate and fragmented email environments into one holistic solution that is always available from the cloud, Mimecast minimises risk and reduces cost and complexity, while providing total end-to-end control of e-mail. Founded in the United Kingdom in 2003, Mimecast serves more than 3 500 customers worldwide and has offices in Europe, North America, Africa, the Middle East and the Channel Islands.
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