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Exchange 2007 and IPv6

Interesting note regarding Microsoft Exchange Server 2007 and IPv6 protocols. A post on the MS IPv6 blog clarified the requirements to Exchange 2007 SP1 running on Server 2008 in order to have IPv6 support for clients.

An IT storm is brewing

The EU decision today against Microsoft is the poor result of an over-reaching, anti-entrepreneurial government system that seeks to hurt those who are successful. Coming from an entrepreneurial family background, and my own experience, woe is he who succeeds in the marketplace (at least in the EU).

We may not see the impact of this decision today on our industry, but it is coming, and is building as the EU gets to thumping its chest over rulings like today. The effect on the IT worker could be the decrease in value of our jobs. As competition is forced into the marketplace over the products used by businesses, competition for our jobs will be as well.

I will sound alarmist, but with decisions like these, Europeans are destined for a one-class society where the government maintains prices, market share, and what assets a company can keep (as in this case). The government will have commanding power into the marketplace and nobody will be able to challenge their position. You think changing the market is tough today? It can be done -- look at the US car industry, web search business, desktop computer industries. Those changes are done from a position of power...the consumer. Try changing your government from a position of no power or leverage. That's what the EU marketplace is becoming.

• http://blogs.zdnet.com/BTL/?p=6272

"With respect to this decision as a whole, we are all going to have amply opportunity to think about what it means for Microsoft, and for our industry and every other industry in the world. The decision very clearly gives the Commission quite broad power and discretion. There are many companies in our industry that have a very large market share. People talk about Windows with 95 percent, or our server share of 60-80 percent. As I mentioned before, Apple has a 70 percent share for digital music in Europe; Google has a 70-80 percent share for search – in some countries in Europe, it has over a 90 percent share. IBM has 99-100 percent share for mainframe computers in Europe and the rest of the world.

Information technology tends to be an industry that is characterised by successful companies having large market shares. Sometimes, those market shares last; in many others instances, they are fleeting. It is very clear that we all have the need to look to Europe and the European Commission under the terms of this decision, and it is equally clear to me that this decision will occupy, as it should, the thoughts and discussion of many people, not just in the weeks ahead, but in the months and years to follow. It is one of these decisions that has that kind of extraordinary impact."

-Brad Smith, Senior Vice President, General Counsel, Corporate Secretary, Legal & Corporate Affairs, Microsoft