Exchange is 10 years old!

I would expect to see the complete elimination of the lines that currently exist between communications types (static text, IM, voice, scheduling, etc...) into single dynamic communications platform.  The beginnings of this are already starting to happen but until standardization between the way these various items talk to each other progress a true merger will be a ways off.

Server virtualization will be mainstream in 2016 and Exchange will be taking full advantage of that, running nearly as an OS in it's own right in single session virtual session.  Cluster awareness for Exchange will be no longer needed or neccessary in the sense that this will be handled by the underlying OS layer, which will handle the start/stoppage of virtual servers that hang or need to be taken offline.

Mail/IM/Voice/Scheduling stores will be both dynamic and replicated; with access to terabytes of storage becoming common-place an Exchange administrator will be able to designate multiple copies of database items replicated over multiple storage volumes over geographically disperse locations.  Load balancing will be acheived by best available/least cost methods, where the response to a data request will be handled by the system with the lowest load and latency times for that request.  Should a virtual Exchange server/data store drop offline, the other desginated servers that have replicates of the date will automatically step in to fill the request.

The client (Outlook) will continue to become thinner, very possibly becoming a framework that will load the neccessary code to the device in question (PDA/Phone/Laptop/Brain Implant?) to display the information that the device is capable of displaying, offering a more rich environment on more capable systems and a simpler interface on system of lean requirements.  Code updates will be loaded centrally to the Exchange environments and then pushed out to clients.

Hows that for start?

- MEK

I would look forward to the ability of Exchange 2016 to take care of all the annonying e-mail in my Inbox. Beam me up to Calendar appointments automatically, so I don't have to bother remembering to go to my meetings and do all the tasks I have in my task folder for me.

Have you seen Starship Troopers?  That is Exchange 2016.  Full video, personal databases, composed messages, and all searchable by the government.

Happy birthday - looking forward for the next 10 years!

I would be excited by having the ability to shut down external ListServ systems, because the Exchange transport servers would handle DL expansion, including members not in AD, and use a sharepoint website as the repository and even message clearing house.
Having to use an external system for List management seems to be so redundant these days, but Exchange today cannot provide all the features they do w/o third party add-ons which essentially are stand alone anyway.

It would also be nice to have the ability to se an Out of Office, and have that temporarily exclude you from non-mandated DLs. So mandated DLs would still come to your mailbox, but less important ones were temporarily unsubscribed.