by Thomas Rizzo,
Product Manager, Exchange group
Like any developer, I get excited when a cool new Internet technology appears. First, it was Active Server Pages (ASP). Every file on my Web server now ends with the conspicuous .asp. With the release of Microsoft Exchange version 5.0, I can extend my Web applications to support the rich features that Exchange offers to any Web developer. (For you Visual Basic and Visual C++ bit-heads, don't worry. Exchange still supports both programming environments.)
Collaboration Data Objects (CDO) 1.2, the next generation of the technology formerly known as Active Messaging, will be available with Exchange 5.5 later this year. With CDO, which can be instantiated from any ASP-based application, developers can write Web applications that query the Exchange directory, send e-mail to distribution lists or individuals, and access threaded discussions and calendaring information. Web browsers will be able to use the same rich views on e-mail and calendaring data that Microsoft Outlook™ clients have enjoyed for some time. As for Web developers, they'll be able to easily add rich discussion and calendaring support to any Web application. Sounds too good to be true? Wait, there's more.
Not only does CDO provide you with access to Exchange information, it will also render it automatically from the Exchange datasource (e-mail folder, public folder, or calendar) into HTML. Imagine having an inbox with 1000 messages and having to render that yourself. These rendering libraries are also extensible, so developers can write new rendering objects for different types of data, such as faxes, voice mail information, and more.
How can you get started using CDO? We will be posting a wealth of information and samples that can help you get started. You should keep an eye on the Microsoft Exchange App Farm at http://www.microsoft.com/technet/appfarm/ for new samples and the Collaboration Data Objects Help file, which will describe all the methods and properties for the messaging and rendering libraries. Also, keep reading the Microsoft Exchange Community Site at http://www.
exchangeserver.com/. This site hosts Internet discussion groups that use Exchange Server and ASPs for dynamic content. My favorite discussion group, of course, is the one about developing applications using Microsoft Exchange and the Outlook desktop information manager. You can also download an evaluation copy of Microsoft
Exchange 5.0 from this site.
Finally, stay tuned for in-depth coverage of how to enhance your Web sites using Collaboration Data Objects and Microsoft Exchange Server in upcoming issues of Developer Network News.