Everyone knows that Microsoft Exchange is expensive - but ubiquitous â" and plenty
of open source projects and vendors have been trying a variety of technical
approaches to replace it. While none is yet a drop-in replacement, a PC World article looks at ways that some administrators can get a cost advantage by switching.
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Member since:2005-12-02
"I'm not saying that Zimbra is the sweetest deal on planet earth but just comparing the cost of the Exchange CALs to the Zimbra licenses isn't an accurate cost comparsion."
True enough, so along with Zimbra go the cost of the server and the RHEL/SLES support license. So if we want to compare, we still can, and is still more expensive. I prefer to deploy CentOS where possible as a server myself, but the fact of the matter for anything truly mission critical, like email, the bosses want to see the support contract. If there is not 24/7 phone support, whether it is ever used or not, you can bet if something *does* happen you may not have a job.
Member since:2005-08-18
Really? Based on what numbers? Did you add AV cost? Anti-spam cost?
True enough. Since I am the boss I do want to see support contracts although the exact nature of it does depend on what in-house skills you have and how critical email is to operations.
Member since:2005-07-08
"anything truly mission critical, like email"
Har, har.
Sorry - this still cracks me up. I'm a systems/network admin at a service provider, so I realize that, apart from connectivity, our two major customer facing services are DNS and email, but it still makes me chuckle when I see the words "critical" and "email" in the same sentence. Maybe I'm just jaded, but to me, "critical" means SCADA or life support, not 50x forwarded Dilbert cartoons.
Sorry for the digression - carry on.
Member since:
2005-08-18
While that is on the surface a sweet deal it's not the whole story.
You do not get any virus or spam protection with the Exchange CAL's or with Exchange but you have to pay extra for that and it may come at quite a price. Then there's of course the cost of Exchange itself and the cost of the Windows server license and as a company you also want a support contract for Exchange. None of this is cheap.
I'm not saying that Zimbra is the sweetest deal on planet earth but just comparing the cost of the Exchange CALs to the Zimbra licenses isn't an accurate cost comparsion.