Thinking about upgrading from Exchange 5.5? Your thoughts wanted?

I'm working on a full-day, pre-conference presentation for the Exchange Connections 2005 conference in San Diego. From the amount of postings I see in the newsgroups, there is still a lot of questions related to Exchange 5.5. This tells me a lot of organizations have not yet made the leap to a newer version of Exchange.

So, my question to you is: why? I agree the platform is fairly stable and does what it is supposed to do. What are the other reasons that you (as the Exchange admin / guru/ dude / dudette) are encountering resistance in getting underway with an upgrade? I'd like to hear your thoughts. E-mail me at exchange24seven (at) gmail.com

For those of you that are San Diego bound and in the market for an Exchange upgrade, I hope you will consider attending my session: Exchange 5.5 to 2003 Migration on October 31 (Monday). Below is a session abstract. I'll try to get an outline of the session posted soon.

Even though Exchange 2003 has been released for more than a year, many organizations are still debating whether or not they should upgrade. A recent survey of Exchange administrators found that over 60% of Exchange installations are still using Exchange 5.5. Once the benefits and features of Exchange 2003 are reviewed, often a number of compelling reasons are found to upgrade.

Exchange 5.5 to Exchange 2003 migration is one of the hottest topics in seminars, books, and newsgroups. There are many paths to choose from and most administrators don’t know which migration path best suites their Exchange organization.

This all-day pre-conference session will cover differing a approaches to Exchange 5.5 to Exchange 2003 and the tools necessary to complete different types of migrations. Third party tools, address list synchronization, and sharing a single SMTP address space. Regardless of where you are in the decision or implementation process, this session will help answer some of those nagging questions and give you tasks to complete for a successful migration.

The first part of the session will include information about performing migrations and choosing the best approach for your situation and your budget. The major third party vendors will be reviewed along their strengths and weaknesses. The second part of the session will include a demonstration of swing migration start to finish.

Jim will share his experiences helping to plan, design, and coordinate upgrades for over 100,000 Exchange 5.5 seats to Exchange 2000 or Exchange 2003 including tips, best practices, and resources for getting your migration right the first time and minimizing disruption to your users.