Microsoft on Wednesday announced the immediate availability of the first service pack for Exchange Server 2010, adding a slew of new features in addition to the expected bug and security fixes and previously-released roll-ups. The release follows a successful public beta that was implemented on almost 500,000 mailboxes by Microsoft's closest partners.
"Exchange 2010 SP1 is a great example of how Microsoft is rapidly responding to customer and partner feedback," said Peter Menadue, a group general manager of Microsoft Solutions at Dimension Data. "We believe the new enhancements to [SP1] can only accelerate the already strong customer demand we've seen for upgrades."
Exchange Server 2010 SP1 adds a number of new features, including:
Archiving and discovery enhancements. SP1 enhances Exchange 2010's integrated archiving capabilities by adding the ability to provision personal archives to different mailbox servers, server-side email importing from PST files, and delegated personal archive access. And search has been improved dramatically with search preview and multi-mailbox search functionality.
Improved Outlook Web App. Exchange's web-based Outlook client gets another update, with a new look and better performance, calendar sharing, and improvements to the Information Rights Management (IRM) capabilities.
Mobility. Exchange ActiveSync (EAS) gets updated with tether-free IRM support, send-as, an improved Conversation View, and improved device blocking and quarantining notification.
New management UI. The Exchange Management Console (EMC) and Exchange Control Panel (ECP) are updated to enable new management tasks.
You can download SP1 now from the Microsoft website.