Most organizations need a wide range of business applications to improve processes and respond to competitive opportunities. In many organizations, this results in a heterogeneous collection of operating systems, e-mail systems, security platforms, and user directories, along with the corresponding overhead of supporting those systems, training users on a variety of interfaces, and hiring a development staff versed in a wide array of technologies.
By providing an extensible messaging platform to which users have access and can use to build messaging and groupware, Microsoft Exchange Server eliminates the need for duplicating the security systems, user directories, client interfaces, systems management interfaces, and development technologies that often accompany process-automation solutions. Microsoft Exchange Server doesn't require its own security system; it uses the security system that is part of the operating system.
Because Microsoft Exchange Server is built on MAPI, custom-application developers and third-party software developers can write to a powerful, widely accepted programming interface to provide customers with a wide selection of groupware applications. By bringing these components under the control of a single messaging-based platform, organizations can focus their resources on creating customized applications, rather than on managing the complexities of multiple and often incompatible systems for each type of messaging or workgroup application.