Success Quote by Nat Friedman

This is the sound of a company trying to look inevitable in someone else's empire. In the early 2000s, Exchange wasn’t just another mail server; it was a gravity well for enterprise IT, the kind of product that quietly dictated procurement, workflow, and even what “professional communication” meant. Nat Friedman’s line is a small, strategic declaration: we’re not waiting on Microsoft, we’re already inside the release cycle.

The specific intent is pragmatic and performative at once. “Support Exchange 2003 as soon as it is released” reassures risk-averse corporate buyers who treat compatibility like a religion. It’s a promise of zero downtime in the migration narratives IT departments sell to management. The second sentence does the real work: “We already have the prerelease versions from MSDN.” That’s credentialing. It signals access, seriousness, and a kind of proximity to the source code temple. You can almost hear the implied pitch: we’re not a scrappy outsider guessing at Microsoft’s moves; we’re tracking them in real time.

The subtext is more interesting because it reveals the paradox of competing in enterprise software: even the challengers have to flatter the platform they’re trying to displace. This isn’t rebellion; it’s judo. By publicly aligning with Exchange’s roadmap, Friedman frames his product as an extension of the Microsoft world rather than a threat to it, lowering the psychological switching cost for customers.

Contextually, it’s also a quiet flex about legitimacy in a market where “open” often got translated as “unsupported.” Having prerelease builds from MSDN isn’t just technical preparation; it’s social proof in a compatibility arms race.