UK firms are stepping up efforts to upgrade their messaging server systems, prompted by looming end-of-support deadlines for software, the need to comply with corporate governance rules and sheer weight of data.

A quarter of global businesses are upgrading messaging server systems, and over a third have completed upgrades during the past six months, according to research by analyst firm Radicati Group.

Peter McCartney, Microsoft business manager at UK services giant Computacenter, said that the US Sarbanes-Oxley Act, which calls for the archiving of documents, is encouraging many firms to upgrade. "The regulations require organisations to archive more documents, but archiving on Exchange 5.5 is very difficult and can be seen as throwing good money after bad," he said. "Exchange 2003 is built with hooks to enable third-party vendors such as KVS to add their own solutions."

McCartney said the phasing out of support for Windows NT 4 coupled with the end of mainstream support for Exchange 5.5 is also fuelling migration to newer platforms to reduce security concerns.

Alistair Hughes, technology leader for Microsoft infrastructure at Computacenter, said many firms were put off by the complexity of moving to Microsoft's Active Directory, which firms must deploy to run Exchange 2003. But he added the benefits of upgrading include lower costs and less complexity in running the systems, server consolidation and greater scalability.

Hughes said firms are also moving from IBM Lotus Domino Version 5 to version 6.5. "That's a much simpler upgrade, but some firms are worried about where IBM is taking the platform [as it is also] pushing its Workplace Messaging platform."

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