On 10 Dec 2013, at 14:57, Charles Marcus <cmar...@media-brokers.com> wrote:
> There has been some whispers about considering migrating our mail systems to > Exchange Server, and I want to try to nip this in the bud if possible. > > I would like to ask for some help with providing some kind of comparison of > mid to large(r) commercial companies use of email systems... specifically, > those using Microsoft Exchange Server, vs those using open source Linux/Unix > based systems (including even commercial *nix groupware based systems like > Zimbra, as well as plain mail systems like dovecot, or cyrus or courier. > > I know that many (if they are smart) Admins that do use Exchange internally > will use postfix (or something else *nix based) in front of it as their > relayhost (for both inbound and outbound), so just counting the number of > publicly accessible smtp servers won't be a good gauge. > > Does anyone know of any decent non-biased studies that have been done, > hopefully relatively recently (last few years), that provide such a > comparison? Do your own comparison based on the TCO of what you have, vs. what you will need for Exchange Server. Focus on the needs of the company over a five-year time period. Include the higher hardware requirements, licensing, extra staff, third party software (backup, management software, archiving ...) and so on. If cost is a factor for the company, you might be able to win on that. I don't think there are comparisons out there that are not at least somewhat biased to the product someone is trying to sell, but there may be snippets you can use in your own comparison. Find the whitepapers for Atmail, CommuniGate Pro, OpenExchange, Scalix, Zimbra, and so on. Compare your requirements vs. their feature lists. If you do decide to go for a third-party 'Exchange compatible' solution, don't forget to factor in the cost of client deployment; there is usually a plugin of some sort that needs to be installed for full Outlook client compatability, if that's what people want to use. Good luck! :) Mvg, Joni
