“…In the short term, enterprises running Exchange Server 2003 will have access to Microsoft’s Intelligent Message Filter. IMF, which will soon be released to beta and is scheduled for general release this summer, uses the same Smartscreen technology that was recently added to Outlook 2003, MSN and Hotmail.

IMF uses Bayesian analysis to identify spam. It considers the whole message, not just a few key words, to distinguish spam from legitimate mail. The technology is of great interest to some Exchange administrators, both in small offices and enterprise networks.

‘If it’s the same technology as in Outlook 2003, it should be pretty good,’ said Ibrahim Abdul-Karim, an Exchange administrator at Delaware Investments in Philadelphia. ‘I’ve used it as a standalone application and it was pretty thorough.’ “