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“I didn’t know it was a hen harrier, Officer,” is what is rumoured to have been said by a high-ranking member of the British Royal Family when questioned by the authorities over an alleged shooting of a pair of the legally-protected birds on a Royal estate.

As the hen harrier is a fast moving bird of prey superbly adapted to its surroundings and well camouflaged, how could anyone have known it wasn’t a game bird in that nanosecond before the gun trigger was pulled?

The same goes for spam. Ever evolving and well camouflaged to blend in with genuine email, it is no wonder that, in the split second that the anti-spam software has to decide between genuine and spam email, mistakes like the hen harrier example get made.

Will anti-spam software be able to cope with the evolution of spam? Or will spam be the end of our preferred method of business communication?

Exchange 2007 is making a big effort to combat spam with its five server roles. Will this be enough to keep pace? Personally I think not and in my opinion spam will one day grind e-communications to a fatal halt. I hope I am wrong. If I am I’ll buy you a beer. But only after we’ve arranged the drinking house, time, and date by email of course. Let me know what you think by posting your comments here.

In the forthcoming months this Exchange newsletter will provide in-depth technical articles, a series on solutions to common problems, and opinion pieces on how to get the most out of the Exchange environment and deal with challenges such as spam and information store overload.

Please send in your top tips on how to optimize Exchange – there is a $50 Amazon voucher for the best one each month. We are also recruiting new authors – please get in touch if you are interested.

And finally, please forward this newsletter to interested colleagues.

Regards,

Michael