applications

If you need a jumpstart into Exchange 5.5 development go and get this book immediately. It provides not only a good overview of Outlook 2000 development it covers also building Web-enabled applications interfacing with Exchange Server 5.5. Also a wealth of information re: server-side scripting and routing capabilities are included. This will give you the immediately start into developing your own applications leveraging all those technologies.

I guess Tom is now working on the second edition using Exchange 2000 as the next generation of Microsoft's messaging and collaboration foundation.

Good work Tom!

This book, the second edition, is mostly for the experienced developer simply because Thomas Rizzo has so much knowledge to share that the inexperienced ones will feel overwhelmed.

Throughout the book he focuses on how to use other Microsoft products, tools and features in collaboration with Exchange. In this second edition digital dashboards and the team folder kit has been added to the general overlook of possibilities with Exchange, Outlook forms development, VBScript, the Outlook object model, CDO, ADSI, COM Add-ins, Outlook and the web, the event scripting agent, useful COM components and server routing objects. Nothing is covered in detail, but there are a lot of code, and he gives you tips and advices you won't find anywhere else (because he's a Microsoft man and knows the whole picture).

The last, and a small part of the book, is dedicated to Exchange 2000. The nice thing is that he first tells you what differs from the Exchange 5.5 server and then provides you with an extended example which is truly collaborative as it makes use of many different aspects of the Microsoft platform. By refering to the example he explains how you can make the most out Exchange 2000 (schema, web storage, active directory, workflow engine, etc). The example alone is almost worth buying the book (it is of course on a cd).

If you already got the first version, this book will not make much difference, unless you have a use of the provided example. Otherwise, if you're an experienced developer this is a good reference of what you can do with the Exchange server.

I bought the first two editions and were impressed with them. The depth of knowledge and the sample applications showed the author put time into digging into the intermediate to advanced topics on building on Microsoft's technologies. With the 3rd edition, I was blown away. It's huge and there is a lot of information to digest. Since I work with both Exchange/Outlook and SharePoint, I especially liked that this book covered both topics (download the SharePoint chapters from the website for the book!). If you are going to buy one book on developing on Microsoft's collaboration technologies, this is the one. I can't wait for the 4th edition.