My company is going to re-do their mail servers and BES's...

Currently, we have multiple exchange orgainizations, and a BES (with its own SQL Server) in each organization... Currently the Exchange servers are v5.5 on Windows 2000 Server...

They want to upgrade the servers to Exchange 2003 on Windows 2003, all in the SAME "new" mail organization.

They want to consolidate the users to one BES in that new exchange org.

I'm getting mixed stories as to the "best way" to migrate these users from the OLD BES & mail servers in the OLD exchange org, to the NEW BES & new mail servers in the NEW exchange org...

From my research, it looks like.. Remove user from old bes... export their mail box from old exchange server, import mail box to new exchange server, add user to new bes, go thru enterprise activation and setup again... which of course requires end user interaction...

But I'm am being told by others that there is a way to accomplish this without need to do ANYTHING to the handhelds... that it can all be done from the server side, and be "seamless" to the end users other than the "outage" as their mail box is moved.

I'm getting so confused!!!

Can anyone shed some light on their experiences? tools used? etc?

If it is a totally new Exchange organization it will not work. The method without user interaction works only while you are in the same organization.

Yeah, it will be a brand new... 3rd exchange org, and all users migrated from the "two old ones" to the 1 new one...

So the what my research is finding... is correct?

Yes, your findings are correct. There is more or less no way to get around end user interaction.

Thank you!!