Fujitsu Siemens Computers (Holding) BV and Microsoft Corp. have announced a strategic alliance to assist organizations to migrate from Exchange Server 5.5 to Exchange Server 2003, with the easyXchange solution, targeted at customers utilizing Fujitsu Siemens hardware.

The partnership came about as a result of Microsoft ending its support for Exchange 5.5 at the end of this year, and Fujitsu Siemens developing what it says is an easy solution to server consolidation and migration.

Manoj Bhoola, Business group manager: server and tools for Microsoft SA, says the company was planning to terminate support for Exchange 5.5 at the end of last year. He explains that Microsoft decided to extend support for a further year because there are still many customers in the local market using Exchange server 5.5 and running other systems like CRM and ERP on the Exchange back-end, who feel that they cannot just change.

?Forty percent of the 50 percent of Microsoft customers that have already acquired the 5.5 upgrade still have not deployed later versions of 5.5,? he says. He notes that due to the support cycle coming to an end in December this year, many companies are planning to upgrade or migrate to Exchange Server 2003. ?We are confident that by the end of this year migration will happen, after a slow uptake over the past two years,? he adds.

Fujitsu Siemens, upon seeing the benefits of its migration process, approached Microsoft to enter into a strategic partnership to assist both companies in migrating their combined client bases from Exchange 5.5 to Exchange 2003.

easyXchange, says Fujitsu Siemens, is a complete, pretested infrastructure solution blueprint, supporting all aspects of mail server and storage consolidation projects, combining predesigned hardware and software in flexible building blocks.

The partnership, according to Jane Tully, business development manager for large enterprise at Fujitsu Siemens, follows the successful migration of Fujitsu Siemens in Germany from Exchange 5.5 to 2003. Through this upgrade the company migrated approximately 7 000 e-mail boxes within the space of six months, which, Tully notes: ?Gave Fujitsu Siemens massive ROI within 12 months of the upgrade and server consolidation with a continued 30 percent saving on top of that. Through this easyXchange solution we believe our customers will derive a lot of benefits,? she says.

One of the benefits of an upgrade to Exchange 2003 is that Exchange 2003 supports more mailboxes and enables server consolidation. Tully says that where previously companies could run 1 000 users on two boxes, they can now run 1 000 users on a single box.

Comments Tully: ?Fujitsu Siemens in Germany reduced 38 sites to only two, consolidated 59 servers into two clusters, and reduced five service partners to two.? She notes that the cost per mailbox is now an average 8 euros compared to 15 euros previously. ?easyXchange is a very cost-effective, flexible, fast and easily manageable solution to local companies which fear migration,? she claims.

The official local launch of easyXchange is set for April, but, notes Tully, ?Fujitsu Siemens has already been in discussions with some major clients to get the ball rolling sooner.?