The ideal platform for business-critical messaging. With unlimited storage capacity, built-in SMP support, improved backup performance, and enhanced security management, Microsoft Exchange 5.5 is the best choice for your messaging foundation. You won't find a better performing, more scalable, more stable messaging platform on the market. Support for Microsoft Windows NT® Server 4.0 Enterprise Edition minimizes system downtime, because of the single-node failure support of Windows NT Enterprise Edition.  

Unmatched interoperability and openness. Microsoft Exchange 5.5 is built on an architecture of Internet standards such as SMTP, POP3, IMAP4, LDAP v.3, and NNTP, letting you choose the protocols you need, with high-fidelity message delivery across a variety of clients. You also get unmatched connectivity with built-in connectors for Lotus Notes, IBM OfficeVision/VM, SNADS, and X.400.  

Powerful collaborative solutions. Microsoft Exchange 5.5 gives you the tools and technology to develop the widest range of collaborative solutions. Start with instant collaboration using Microsoft Outlook™ 97 desktop information manager, Microsoft Office 97, and the drag-and-drop Microsoft Exchange Server design environment or build fully featured Web applications using standard Web tools such as Microsoft Visual InterDev™ integrated Web application development system or Microsoft Visual Studio™ developmental studio. Microsoft Exchange 5.5 gives you the freedom to match your development solution to your business needs while taking advantage of the extended integration with other Microsoft BackOffice® family of servers such as Microsoft SQL Server™, Microsoft Systems Management Server, and Microsoft Internet Information Server (IIS).  

Easy, low-cost administration. The integrated diagnostics, remote management, and flexible directory support in Microsoft Exchange 5.5 results in the easiest setup, configuration, and administration on the market. In addition, Exchange continues to be the lowest cost client/server messaging solution available  

Microsoft Exchange Server 5.5 Standard Edition contains:  

• Exchange 5.5 server
• Outlook 97 client
• MS® Mail Connector
• Internet Mail Service
• Cc:Mail Connector
• Microsoft Exchange Connector
• Connector to Lotus Notes
• Collaboration Data Objects
• Internet News Service 
• Microsoft Visual InterDev
• Microsoft Exchange Chat Service

• All Standard Edition components: 
• Unlimited storage
• X.400 Connector
• IBM OfficeVision/VM/SNADS Connectors

Business-critical messaging  

Industry-leading scalability. Unlimited storage capacity in Exchange Enterprise and support of SMP enable hosting thousands of users per server on Microsoft Windows NT–class hardware. Single-instance message store maximizes disk usage. 

Highest performance. Native implementation of Internet standards provides the fastest MAPI, POP3, IMAP4, and NNTP server so that users can be working and not waiting for their server to respond. 

Highest availability. Clustering support in Exchange Enterprise keeps your server up and running in the event of a hardware failure so that your business can stay online. 

Highest reliability. The transaction-based store of Exchange Server and MTAs makes sure that message delivery is reliable. You can always determine if your e-mail reached its destination and whether it was read. 

Security. Your communication is secure whether internal to your organization or across the Internet through unified Exchange and Windows NT logon, password expiration, and support for the latest encryption standards including SSL, E/SMTP, SASL, and digital signatures. 

Openness and interoperability  

Multiprotocol architecture. Whether you need the full functionality of MAPI or an Internet standards-based solution, Exchange is the only system that lets you choose the protocols and the clients to best fit your needs without requiring add-on components. 

Built-in Internet standards. Whether SMTP/POP3, IMAP4, HTTP, LDAPv3, or NNTP, Exchange makes it easy to connect and share information with other clients and servers. Native implementation means high-fidelity message delivery across a variety of clients. 

Notes interoperability. Exchange provides mail connectivity with Notes v3 or v4 and Domino v4.5, including RTF, OLE, and attachment support as well as Notes-to-Exchange directory synchronization. 

Shared file systems interoperability. Exchange provides connectivity to MS Mail and cc:Mail. 

Host-based interoperability. Migration and coexistence tools for the most common messaging environments, PROFs, Dec All-in-one, and SNADs are a part of Exchange. 

OSI connectivity. Exchange delivers integrated X.400, X.500, and X.25. 

Scalable, compatible client family. In addition to Microsoft Outlook 97 on Microsoft Win32®, Exchange includes Outlook versions for Win16 and the Macintosh, providing a consistent user interface and interoperable scheduling across platforms.  

Easy administration  

Superior integration with Windows NT. Tight integration with the Windows NT directory and common performance monitoring and administration tools simplify Exchange management and reduce total cost of ownership. Exchange 5.5 delivers advance support of the Active Directory Service Interface to be delivered in Windows NT 5.0. 

Cost of acquisition. Exchange is the lowest cost client/server messaging solution available today. 

Administration. Of administrators, 70% prefer the powerful administration and unified graphical interface of Exchange Server and find it faster and easier to get their jobs done. WAN and RAS administrative capabilities enable remote management as well.  

Least cost routing. Built-in, least cost routing sends messages throughout the organization following the lowest cost route. This also supports failover of remote links. 

Proactive monitors. Exchange Server is the only system that delivers integrated monitoring that tells the status of the system and warns of potential problems before they occur so that the appropriate action can be taken. Integration with Windows NT Server allows the server and link monitors to reset Exchange services on remote servers without your having to take action. 

Flexible directory support. Administrators can create virtual organizations by creating multiple address containers that can be viewed only by members of the virtual organization, allowing multiple organizations to be hosted on the same server without being aware of each other.  

Wide variety of collaborative solutions  

Instant collaboration. With Exchange 5.5, Microsoft Outlook 97 and the Web, users can quickly and easily develop solutions to meet their needs to manage, share, and analyze information. 

Active Server Pages. Exchange provides this Web-based approach to building collaboration solutions running on Microsoft Internet Information Server (IIS) and accessing services of BackOffice. 

Exchange scripting agent. Now you can create event-driven solutions for automating the business process using simple workflow. 

Real-time collaboration. Chat Service and ILS extend the reach of your custom solutions to real-time communication such as virtual meetings and real-time application sharing. 

Standard Web tools that leverage existing investments. You can use Microsoft Visual InterDev and new design-time controls included with Exchange or the other tools in Microsoft Visual Studio to build full-featured Web applications. 

Collaborative data objects. Exchange exposes a rich set of services accessible using standard tools such as VisualBasic®, Scripting Edition to create collaborative solutions with features such as discussion groups, group scheduling, and robust messaging. 

Integration with BackOffice. 

Integration with Microsoft SQL Server allows you to send messages triggered by SQL Server events. Exchange Scripting Agent enables automated data transfer between the Exchange and SQL stores. 

Integration with Microsoft Systems Management Server allows you to deploy Exchange clients and Outlook clients painlessly to user desktops and monitor the client software for upgrades. 

Integration with IIS using Collaboration Data Objects allows you to access all of the Exchange Resources through a Web browser  

Standard Server  

For Intel® and compatible systems:  

System with an Intel Pentium 60 or faster processor (Pentium 133 recommended) 24 MB of memory (32 MB recommended) 250 MB of available hard-disk space (500 MB recommended)  

For RISC-based systems:  

System with an Alpha processor 32 MB of memory (48 MB recommended) 300 MB of available hard-disk space (500 MB recommended) Microsoft Windows NT Server version 4.0 and Windows NT Server version 4.0 Service Pack 3 or later CD-ROM drive  

Enterprise Server  

For Intel and compatible systems:  

System with an Intel Pentium 60 or faster processor (Pentium 133 recommended) 64 MB of memory 250 MB of available hard-disk space (500 MB recommended)  

For RISC-based systems:  

System with an Alpha processor 64 MB of memory 300 MB of available hard-disk space (500 MB recommended) Microsoft Windows NT Server version 4.0 and Windows NT Server version 4.0 Service Pack 3 or later CD-ROM drive