Help us understand Exchange Custom Development

[The_Exchange_Team]

There are tens of thousands of people out there developing applications on Microsoft Exchange, yet there is little that Microsoft knows about this developer community.

For example, what applications have been developed, what other communications tools besides Exchange have been using, and most importantly, what Microsoft could do to better help the developer community?

In order to get a better insights Microsoft engaged with Frost and Sullivan, an independent third party, to conduct a Unified Communications Developer survey.

If you are a developer of unified communications applications such as Exchange, please spare us 15 minutes and fill out this survey:

http://www.globaltestmarket.com/survey/s.phtml?sn=134581&lang=E&secid=9f8cbb

When you click the link you will be directed to a secured site hosted by Frost and Sullivan that will allow you to fill out the survey. Please be sure to enable cookies.

Based on the data collected in the survey, we hope to develop a set of activities to provide better assistance to you in building great enterprise solutions on the Microsoft Unified Communications platform.

We will keep you posted on such activities via this blog.

Please note that Frost and Sullivan will keep all your individual responses confidential and anonymous. Thanks for your time!

- Albert Kooiman

[#2]

Can't help to feel a little desperation behind this survey from the Exchange group even if I see good intentions behind the request.

[#3]

Go ahead guys and fill in the survey.

With a bit of luck MS will include your application into the next Exchange release and your company will go out of business.

[#4]

Am I the only ISV developer who still writes in C++ ?  Microsoft pulled the rug out from under us ISVs who still have to write and support legacy commercial software written in C++ and integrate with Exchange.  I keep hearing 'use Powershell'.  Well...how exactly do you do that from C++ ?  Is it that hard for Microsoft to create a COM interface into Powershell for C/C++ developers ?

[#5]

Intention of my first comment was not to create a pick thread on MS the "do no "evil"live" company, but express a rather reflective thought regarding their apparent fishing of existing/thriving business models around exchange as they seems/indicates to be out of touch with their own product and it's usage. (Maybe because they have forgotten/neglected to work together/in pair with their partners?)

Well, I don't see a risk of MS stealing our applications, however I wonder how the business model is intended to work for us partners? We are heading towards the cloud and trying to figure out our dev/customization business model on top of Exchange in it's current form by this survey makes me questioning their direction. All the power they have, all the opportunities and they continue to slip. Guys, the world is changing, me and my generation of "do it right from the start" are dying. Up and run, get the dough, adapt to reality. "Information at your finger tip" => "follow Your customer, appear as they expect". .NET is good but not the world of entreprenours. (C++ is even better and worse). Mail, twitter, IM, UC, "Video", BLOB, EDI (still still still). This is what Exchange should manage, Outlook starts to be a liability (I love it but a progress inhibitor never the less). give us the Glue we need, and provide us the power to use it and we will glue.

[#6]

Rob, put your heart at rest, you did not trigger my comment.

Secondly note that I am not talking of evil and not evil. I am talking of business here. I am no anti-MS freak.

It is a fact that ISVs have lost a lot of business in the last few years because MS took over their markets.

Having said that I am an MS Partner because, despite everything, MS owns the platforms that give the best business opportunity.

[#7]

I had no intention to point any fingers, just to make a stand just in case it derailed.

I however agree with you, MS is by far the easiest and offers the best business opportunity for now. But the current  MS partner strategy and market situation forces us partners to start to look at/for alternatives and it proves to be easier than expected, to MS disadvantage I'm afraid. I have been a hard core MS advocate for quite exactly 20 years. (yes you read right.) However, despite BPOS, and Azure I see MS loosing attraction rapidly for the first time after the last 9 years of confusing strategy and to some level arrogance towards a new generation entrepreneurs and developers. Secondly I see Google doing many things right in Software, API and developer engagement. Who would have thought that my old employer (MS) would actually start to lose out this badly to Google that was not even in the zone regarding general developer engagement. I give Google some creds here, but I would like MS step up somewhat, and I still have my confidence in Ray Ozzie.  my.Live.com is more or less a living dead social environment due to small but arrogant decisions, hard to get engaged when the TOU is unclear and it’s one step forward and two step backwards regarding their live apps API’s regarding support, budget and commitments. I suggest MS to full heartedly piggyback on the success stories out there like Facebook, where Facebook Developer toolkit is a perfect example where .NET developers becomes  de motivated. (It's not time for MS to blame the "Community" here for lacking engagement, it's about a value of the .NET platform and support from Microsoft for the existing Microsoft believers).  I don’t write comments often and this post was about Exchange not facebook or .NET, but in order to go back to Exchange I think that a MS managed marketplace for add-ons, customizations that is somewhat more logical and easier to access than the current partner search would definitely help increase the business value to make and sell custom developed apps for Exchange/Outlook with MS supported payment management without any fees to sell what we make to an international market. www.iExchange.com ;o)