Last year at Teched I wrote an article that Exchange might get log shipping support, well today Microsoft announced that it will be available in Exchange 12!
Using Log shipping admins can have continues backup solutions.

Also Exchange 12 deployment will be simplyfied, giving the admin to choose Exchange server roles, like edge server, OWA, backend.

AutoDiscovery service to configure Outlook and devices to connect to Exchange

Scriptable command line interface

Native 64-bit Support (direct when it is relased)

Ability to connect the Exchane 12 server to a PBX, users can receive voicemail and faxes in their mailbox and better, users can phone to their mailbox and have email read to them or cancel appointments and send the meeting attentdees a voicemessage.[8-|]

Serverside search
Access documents form Sharpoint sites

More:


OWA12: Shared SharePoint documents from OWA
Efficient, reliable meeting scheduling
Browse contacts, language setting

Message hygiene  
Edge Server Protection
Anti-virus & Anti-spam extensibility

Secure messaging
Auto-establish secure B2B email
Secure content sharing over email

Enterprise policy enforcement
Mail flow policies: archival, encryption, routing
Storage policies: retention, archival, deletion
Rich auditing and search

The Speaker did not say any release schedule for Exchange 12.  It is in a "too early stage"