Rumors are already circulating about the next release of Exchange, code-named E14, due to release in 2009 or 2010. One of the most interesting rumors concerns email archiving and what Microsoft plans to offer for this critical market space. Microsoft currently supports email archiving by third-party solutions and provides MAPI, an Exchange client API, that third-party archival solutions use to capture email from the journal mailbox.
With Exchange 2007, Microsoft announced it was "de-emphasizing" MAPI and told third-party companies to "consider redesigning custom applications that are using MAPI as early as possible," but did not offer any information about a MAPI replacement.
One rumor is that Microsoft will leverage Exchange Standby Continuous Replication (SCR), a new Exchange 2007 SP1 feature, for email archiving. SCR is a nifty replication technology that could work nicely for email archiving, if Microsoft decides to open up an API to access Exchange Mailbox Stores off-host.
Will Microsoft open up SCR for email archiving, or will it keep Exchange tightly closed? We will have to wait to find out.
... Bob Spurzem