On Monday, the company focused on security, management and compliance issues, trumpeting a number of new and improved features on Exchange 2013 in these areas.

"This is our first real opportunity to talk about the new Exchange," said Michael Atalla, Microsoft's director of product management for Exchange, in an interview after delivering a keynote at the Microsoft Exchange Conference (MEC) in Orlando. Microsoft last held MEC 10 years ago, according to the company.

Exchange 2013 is in beta testing and Microsoft hasn't given an official date for its commercial availability.

Its cloud-based counterpart, Exchange Online, which is part of the Office 365 email and collaboration suite, is also being enhanced in lockstep with Exchange 2013.

The products, which have been available for user testing since July, will have full parity of features, except in the case of functionality that is relevant to have only either on premise or in the cloud, Atalla said.