Microsoft Exchange Conference (MEC) made its return in 2012 after 10 years of hiatus. Microsoft is, however, not planning to make us wait another decade to hang out with the Squeaky Lobster as they already told us to save the date for March 31 – April 2 2014.
MEC has always been described as an event that is a hub for everything Exchange. I had to see it to believe it so I flew down to Orlando (Florida) in 2012 and encountered an unprecedented experience this community creates.
MEC is not only a “place” where you can learn about best practices for migrating to Exchange 2013, delve deep into Exchange architecture, have long conversations with the Exchange Team or talk to other Exchange experts or software vendors. It’s also a “place” where you can drink beer with Jaap Wesselius, meet J. Peter Bruzzese in an elevator or play Cut the Rope with Michael Atalla on a huge Office 365 touch-screen.
Unlike other conferences, MEC speakers never disappear into the abyss after their session but stick around all time willing to talk with you on any topic. The 2012 edition hosted over 110 Exchange experts including a whopping number of 50 Exchange MVPs and 60 members of the Exchange Team who were there for you.
The letter C in MEC stands both for Conference and also for Community. Reviving MEC seemed to be a good move since uber-conferences like TechEd are too massive and it was pretty hard to create a sense of community surrounding all things Microsoft Exchange in the crowd of thousands of different IT experts.
Let’s cut to the chase and see what to expect in the Lone Star State in 2014:
Migrations to Exchange 2013 and Office 365
That’s a banker. Exchange Server 2003 will transition out of extended support just a week after MEC 2014 finishes. Getting ready to migrate, deploying infrastructure and finally moving to Exchange 2013 or Office 365 is the only way out for companies still dependent on older Exchange editions. Exchange 2013 architecture, deployment and upgrade paths are already mentioned as parts of the agenda of MEC 2014 on its official website.
The future of cloud and on-premises server applications
Latest buzz on cloud vs on-premise tools leads me to believe there might be a lot of topics about where these two are going now. Tony Redmond says there are lots of IT Pros who believe on-premises Exchange Server days are numbered and that Office 365 will now take the lead. There were questions like this raised during Exchange Connections 2013 in Las Vegas. Redmond is far from taking this idea for granted.
New releases
Some experts are predicting Microsoft will release new products during the conference. The new edition of Exchange seems to be a too bold prediction, but a new version of Lync does not sound too far-flung at all especially if you take a look at Tony Bates’s post, which reads that Microsoft has planned to release a new Lync Server version before Q3 of 2014.
The future of email
Microsoft heralds a new version of email – an email that is more social and mobile than ever before. There will definitely be some sessions about the new Mobile OWA that is now only available on iOS, the future of Outlook, Office 365 and mobility.
Tips and tricks
MEC wouldn’t be MEC without lots of tips and tricks sessions. The 2014 edition will be dealing with Exchange Extensibility, DLP, eDiscovery, Compliance, Exchange Online Protection, Encryption Services and finally Exchange Transport rules. That’s a lions share of what you can find inside Office 365 and Exchange.
Lots of great 3rd party tools for your company
MEC is not only about sessions and evening parties – it’s a trade show as well. 40 companies are expected to be presenting new technologies in the Exhibit Hall during the conference. Check out the list of sponsors and see what tools they are selling. That’s a great chance for you to talk to their reps and get some hands-on experience with their products. Who knows how many nagging Exchange problems you will solve in Austin?
And once you step your feet in the Exhibit Hall, don’t forget to stop by CodeTwo’s booth to see our products for Exchange 2013, 2010 and Office 365. We will definitely be presenting our Exchange email flow and signature tools, Exchange migration software and a brand new product for Exchange and Office 365 admins.
Take a look at some of the pics I took in Orlando last year during MEC 2012:
Is your mind made up? Go ahead and register for MEC 2014 at http://www.iammec.com/ and don’t forget to visit CodeTwo’s booth there.
About the author: Szymon Szczesniak
Szymon is the CEO of CodeTwo and the driving force behind the company’s consistent growth. He is well known among IT and business professionals worldwide, with 170,000+ followers on LinkedIn.
This short video presents how to add an email signature to all users in Exchange 2016, using Exchange Admin Center. This method does not require any third party software and provides all users with a HTML based email signature and disclaimer.
[embed]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ketoNsE-fZo[/embed]
If you setup an Exchange account in your mobile phone or tablet, you will be able to view your own Exchange mailbox but you will not be able to sync your device with any public folders on Exchange Server. It's a common problem many smartphone users encounter every day. If you need to access your company's Exchange databases, such as calendars or contacts, and then synchronize them with your mobile device to stay on top of everything, you will not be able to do it using Exchange Server native capabilities. Unfortunately, the most popular handhelds such as iPhone, iPad, BlackBerry or Android cannot be synchronized with public folders of Exchange Server unless you resort to doing a little trick. You can use a third party solution from CodeTwo. It's called CodeTwo Exchange Sync and it lets you automatically synchronize data between your personal Exchange mailbox and public folders on Exchange Server. Once your data is finally located in your mailbox, you can easily synchronize it with your smartphone using its native software. By doing so, you will always have the same amount of the most up-to-date data in your personal mailbox and in your mobile device as well: CodeTwo Exchange Sync can be installed either directly on server or on any PC in your Exchange environment. Its simple and intuitive user's interface will let you quickly configure synchronization tasks, which will be performed by the program automatically and in real time. All your synchronization tasks are located on the left hand side in the program's pane: CodeTwo Exchange Sync has various synchronization options. You can sync your folders using the following methods: one-to-one - one way synchronization
one-to-many - one way synchronization
many-to-one - one way synchronization
folder ring - two way synchronization One-to-one synchronization will let you e.g. automatically update all shared company contacts to your private contacts folder. However, all changes in your personal contacts folder or in your mobile device will not be propagated to the shared company contacts folder: If you select a folder ring method, you can sync two (or more folders) in a two way mode. It means that any changes in any folder are propagated to all folders included in the synchronization task. In other words, if you create a folder ring synchronization task for shared company contacts, your personal contacts folder and your friends' contact folders, any changes made on your folders and mobile devices will be propagated to every folder. All in all, each folder will be a mirror of every other folder in this synchronization task: CodeTwo Exchange Sync is not only designed to let you share data between mobile devices and Exchange Server. It's ability to synchronize Exchange Server folders with private mailboxes in any mail client connected to Exchange gives you a number of collaboration possibilities. You can e.g. create a common company's calendar containing appointments entered by any group of employees. What is more, filtering and modifying tools in the program are able to mark each synchronized item on the fly to make it unique and recognizable in the group of other items (e.g. by adding the Source Folder Name or Source Mailbox Name to the subject): CodeTwo Exchange Sync can be downloaded from our website and tested for free for 30 days. The program is easy to use and can be implemented in your organization within a few minutes. Take the CodeTwo Exchange Sync tour for genera
UPDATE: We are sorry, but CodeTwo Out of Office Manager mentioned in this article has been discontinued. If you are looking for an alternative for Exchange Server, take a look at the auto respond feature in CodeTwo Exchange Rules Pro.
Imagine you write to someone who has just gone on their annual leave. Not a big deal, everyone needs a vacation once in a while. But what if they forget to set up their Out of Office reply or take a sudden leave and your email is not forwarded? Personally, I would be pretty furious if I had to wait for a week just to find out someone was absent. Another problem with Out of Office replies is that sometimes they are unique, user-created. Sometimes, those automatic responses might be even worse. Most people just want to know when you come back and who to contact when you are gone. They are not that interested in your family life, or what you like to do in your free time. Some Out of Office messages make you think what kind of company is into such oversharing policy. Unfortunately, such situations happen. Neither Exchange Server, nor Office 365 lets you centrally manage those automatic replies for other users in a user-friendly way. That is why we have thought that a free Out of Office Manager might come in handy.
Microsoft Exchange Conference (MEC) made its return in 2012 after 10 years of hiatus. Microsoft is, however, not planning to make us wait another decade to hang out with the Squeaky Lobster as they already told us to save the date for March 31 – April 2 2014.
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