Microsoft Offers Exchange Anti-Spam Tool To All: Page 2 of 4

"IMF uses the same spam filtering that's in Outlook 2003 and puts it on the server so administrators can decide how aggressively they want to look at spam entering the network," said Pawlak. "Once it's delivered to the Outlook client, the user can set his own level to, for instance, filter even more aggressively."

IMF can assign a 'spam confidence level' to messages based on the regularity of word associations, and 'train' itself to better spot spam by monitoring what kind of messages users designate as junk mail. It also includes tools for archiving spam -- rather than simply discarding it -- so that administrators can review messages designated as spam to catch false positives.

The filtering technology also offers ways for third-party anti-spam vendors to hook their products into Exchange 2003.

"Microsoft heard from customers and analysts both," said Pawlak, "and realized that fighting spam was the most crucial problem they had to lick. It didn't make any sense for them to limit IMF's distribution."

The Intelligent Message Filter, which can be downloaded free of charge from the Microsoft Web site, requires Exchange Server 2003 Standard or Enterprise edition, something that sticks in Pawlak's craw.