Deprecating support for SmartScreen in Outlook and Exchange

We just bought 6 servers (2 per datacenter) for Exchange 2016 Edge role and are using a 3rd party AV on it.

We are a 3000 mailbox financial corp. and never had any problems with Smartscreen.

I was just using the .\get-AntispamSCLHistogram.ps1 (all above SCL 5 is being rejected) and we heavily rely on the screening and the SCLs. Of course we are using RBLs as well, but still we do see a lot of mails with an SCL above 5….

To me it looks like that you want all the traffic in the cloud and customers who were using products like Exchange Edge are now screwed. For what reason should I still use Exchange Edge server?

The product itself without being able to protect against spam is almost useless in my opinion (except the use of RBLs, routing and header firewall). We remember when you discontinued the multi engine anti-virus product (Forefront Protection 2010 for Exchange Server) and moved it to the cloud. Now you are doing something similar with one of the last good features of Edge on premise.

Also the timing is more than not ideal. Your “German cloud” still doesn’t exist and we don’t know if you’ll even offer EOP in the German cloud.

We do work in the financial industry and our customers expect us to handle their financial data and conversations directly and not to use EOP with some servers based in countries where we can’t ensure that our customers data is save from being spied on.

You still advertise Edge as:

Edge Transport servers handle all inbound and outbound Internet mail flow by providing mail relay and smart host services for your Exchange organization. Agents running on the Edge Transport server provide additional layers of message protection and security. These agents provide protection against viruses and spam and apply transport rules to control mail flow. All of these features work together to help minimize the exposure of your internal Exchange to threats on the Internet. https://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb124701(v=exchg.160).aspx

After almost 10 years of being a loyal Exchange Edge user it seems like that we now have to look for another solution e.g. Ciscos Email Security Appliances.

Please feel free to contact me and maybe you can let your customers in Germany know if you can offer EOP in the German cloud as well.

Thank you.