With Snow Leopard, the Mac is the only computer
with built-in support for Microsoft Exchange Server 2007. So you can use
your Mac — with all the features and applications you love — at home
and at work and have all your messages, meetings, and contacts in one
place.
Every day is “bring your Mac to work” day.
The Mac already works brilliantly in managed corporate environments, even in companies that support mixed platforms. It can run Microsoft Office and Windows applications. It can connect to virtually any server and share files with virtually any computer. It can authenticate to Active Directory servers.Now with Snow Leopard, the Mac has out-of-the-box support for Microsoft Exchange Server 2007, something even Windows PCs don't have. Instead of using Outlook to access Exchange services such as email, calendar invitations, and Global Address Lists, you’ll use Mail, iCal, and Address Book. Because they’re on the Mac, you can continue taking advantage of all the powerful Mac features you love, including Spotlight, Quick Look, data detectors, and more. And finally you can view your Exchange-based work life right alongside your personal mail, calendars, and contacts.
Setup that makes sense.
The best way to set up Mail, iCal, and Address Book to access your Exchange account is with the Exchange Autodiscovery feature. If this feature is enabled by your IT department, you just open the Accounts panel in Mail, enter your Exchange user name and password, and check the box to automatically set up your other applications. Mail will use Autodiscovery to grab all the pertinent information from the server and configure your settings, so you can start using your applications right away. Mac OS X also supports manual configuration of your Exchange server settings and remote setup and access of Exchange through most VPN connections.
All your email, all in one place.
You’ll access and manage your Exchange email alongside your personal email using the Mail application in Mac OS X. When you compose messages, Mail can autocomplete names from the Global Address List. You can create notes and to-do items and receive and act on event invitations in email. And use the other great features of Mail. Search across all your accounts at once using Spotlight. Create Smart Folders that gather mail messages from any or all accounts based on custom search criteria, such as all messages from your boss or all messages with the words “To Do” in the subject. Use Quick Look to view large previews of attachments without opening the files. Take advantage of data detectors, which pick out important bits of information in email messages — such as dates, phone numbers, and addresses — so you can act on them with one click.
A versatile, powerful desktop calendar.
iCal on your Mac offers all the Exchange-based features you expect, including the ability to view real-time availability of coworkers and conference rooms in the Global Address List and autocomplete their names when you invite them to meetings. You can receive and act on meeting invitations in email, and you can send invitations to people outside your organization using email; they’ll receive an .ics attachment that, when opened, will add the appointment to their iCal calendar. iCal also lets you create and manage as many separate calendars as you need — one or more Exchange-based calendars for work, a separate calendar for your family, another for birthdays, and so on. You can view them all at once in a single window or choose to see only the calendars you want. You can even choose to delegate your calendar to a colleague.
