Exchange vs. email
To help you understand the productivity-boosting options that Exchange offers, here is a comparison of Exchange/Outlook versus basic email:
| Exchange vs. basic email | ||
|---|---|---|
| Exchange/Outlook | Basic email | |
| Group scheduling | ✔ | ✘ |
| Send out meeting requests, then track and update them | ✔ | ✘ |
| Shared calendars and side-by-side calendar views | ✔ | ✘ |
| Access to personal and shared address books from remote locations | ✔ | ✘ |
| Outlook single sign-on for email and network access | ✔ | ✘ |
| Outlook connections over the Internet are secure | ✔ | some solutions |
| Server-side spam filtering | ✔ | some solutions |
| Put multicolored flags next to emails as a reminder to follow up | ✔ | partial |
| Ability to add voting buttons to a messages | ✔ | ✘ |
| Automatic out-of-office reply | ✔ | ✘ |
| Ability to recall sent messages | ✔ | ✘ |
| Support for multiple-computer access | ✔ | partial |
| Access to email via Web browsers and mobile browsers, Outlook Mobile in Windows Mobile-based Pocket PCs, Pocket PC Phone Edition and Smartphones | ✔ | some solutions |
| Outlook Cached Exchange Mode for working with intermittent Web connection (eg dial-up) | ✔ | some solutions |
| Offline email, calendar, contacts, and public folder support | ✔ | partial |
| Access to public folders for sharing documents and information | ✔ | ✘ |
| Basic email support for SMTP, POP3, and IMAP4 | ✔ | ✔ |
| Easy management of Outlook and Exchange Server profiles across multiple machines to lower support costs | ✔ | ✘ |