Microsoft wants to know.

As you know, we make our business helping you, our customers, to synchronize information from one folder to another with our Add2Exchange product line. Some of those very important pieces of information of yours live in Exchange Public Folders, which have always been a good place to store shared information for the organization.

For a few years now, Microsoft has been making noises about the removal of public folders from the next version of Exchange entirely. While this would make us here at DidItBetter sad to see such useful functionality fall by the wayside, Microsoft has assured us and you that they would provide another, better alternative through Sharepoint services. While we're not always sold on external software to solve such an intrinsic issue faced by all Exchange users, rest assured that we will stay on top of whichever technical direction Microsoft takes.

In the meantime, it looks as though Microsoft may be taking some further input on how public folders fit into the customer picture. While this may just be information gathering for the specifications of whatever replacement technology is waiting in the wings, it may also shed some light on exactly how important public folders are to you and how much work Microsoft (or you) will have to deal with in upgrading to a non-public folder world.

You can provide your feedback here at the Microsoft Exchange Blog