The Exchange Team is pleased to announce that in the second half of calendar year 2011 we will be releasing Exchange Server 2010 Service Pack 2 (SP2) to our customers. With SP2, the following new features and capabilities will be included:

• Outlook Web Access (OWA) Mini: A browse-only version of OWA designed for low bandwidth and resolution devices. Based on the existing Exchange 2010 SP1 OWA infrastructure, this feature provides a simple text based interface to navigate the user’s mailbox and access to the global address list from a plurality of mobile devices.
• Single Sign-on for Outlook Web Access: Providing the ability for users who have already authenticated with their directory credentials to not need to re-enter them again upon opening OWA.
• Hybrid Configuration Wizard: Organizations can choose to deploy a hybrid scenario where some mailboxes are on-premises and some are in Exchange Online with Microsoft Office 365. Hybrid deployments may be needed for migrations taking place over weeks, months or indefinite timeframes. This wizard helps simplify the configuration of Exchange sharing features, like: calendar and free/busy sharing, secure mailflow, mailbox moves, as well as online archive.
• Address Book Policies: Allows organizations to segment their address books into smaller scoped subsets of users providing a more refined user experience than the previous manual configuration approach. We also blogged about this new feature recently in GAL Segmentation, Exchange Server 2010 and Address Book Policies.
• Customer Requested Fixes: All fixes contained within update rollups released prior to Service Pack 2 will also be contained within SP2. Details of our regular Exchange 2010 release rhythm can be found in Exchange 2010 Servicing.

In order to support these newly added features, there will be a requirement for customers to update their Active Directory schema. We’ve heard the feedback loud and clear from our customers on multiple occasions regarding delays that can be caused to deployment as a result of needing to update your schema and as such with the release of Exchange 2010 SP2 are communicating the required changes ahead of release in order to assist our customers with planning their upgrade path ahead of time.

We hope these announcements come as welcome news to you. It is our custom to provide ongoing improvements to features, functionality and security of Exchange Server, based largely on customer feedback, and to provide continual innovation on an already great messaging product. We look forward to receiving your comments and announcing more detailed information as we continue to develop the features that will be included in SP2.

Source: Kevin Allison