"If they were really serious [about fighting spam] they'd come up with an IMF for Exchange 2000, or even Exchange 5.5. Because it only works with Exchange 2003, Microsoft's obviously trying to provide an incentive for people to upgrade."
Along with the IMF add-on, Microsoft has posted a deployment guide in Microsoft Word format that it urged all users to review before installing the new tool. "If you do not configure Intelligent Message Filter correctly, your messaging environment can be negatively affected," said Microsoft on its Web site.
Also on Tuesday Microsoft released Service Pack 1 (SP1) for Exchange 2003, which features, among bug fixes, a refreshed user interface for Outlook Mobile Access, updated migration tools for customers moving from Exchange 5.5, and enhanced migration support in a new Active Directory Connector.
"There are a few new features in SP1," said Pawlak, "but they're very small things. The majority of it is bug fixes."
Exchange Server 2003 SP1 can be downloaded free of charge from Microsoft's site, or ordered on CD. The latter is also free, although a $5 shipping and handling charge applies.