Was there a question anywhere in there? Are you looking at options or
availability of what's out there now?
Just wanted to express your thoughts?
If wanted, I've done a lot of recent work on Exchange vs Google Apps vs Kerio
vs Zimbra. I'd be happy to offer.
From: [email protected] [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of
Gregg TeHennepe
Sent: Wednesday, March 04, 2009 11:32 AM
To: LOPSA Discuss List
Subject: Re: [lopsa-discuss] Exchange vs anything else (was iSCSI in practice)
We're not a large shop (~1700 users, but ~1 TB of mail), but we've been through
the rounds with email and calendar. I originally supported a sendmail/pop/imap
implementation for email with Synchronize for calendar for a number of years,
and it worked reasonably well and was inexpensive, though folks didn't like
Synchronize. Demands for better cross-platform calendaring, better web email
interface, support for mobile devices, etc drove us to look at the options.
The first time around (about five years ago) we ended up on Oracle
Collaboration Suite, which ended up making Exchange look easy, low cost, and
reliable. After reaching a point with OCS last year where Oracle, after three
attempts, couldn't upgrade us to a supported release, we bailed and did a
second review of the options. We concluded there wasn't much else beyond
Exchange or Zimbra that had both the features and good x-platform support (our
research faculty mostly run Macs). Zimbra's financial situation wasn't the
most reassuring, and their support for mobile devices (BlackBerry and iPhone)
was limited. Exchange was selected, which was a hard nut to swallow for many
folks. We cutover to Exchange 2007 over a single very long weekend last Sept,
we are supporting Outlook, Entourage and T-Bird, we provide full BlackBerry and
iPhone support. Things have gone very smoothly since then... I'm a Mac/iPhone
user, and can say this solution is the best we've had in my 15 years here. It
may not be the least expensive, but MS Edu pricing makes it reasonable. It's
got its quirks - there are things I miss about T-Bird, but I'd trade them in a
heartbeat for the integrated email/calendar in Entourage, and for good iPhone
support.
I think the communications disconnect runs both ways - there isn't a clear
understanding of the cost on the management side, but there doesn't always
appear to be an understanding of the functional requirements on the technical
side. A well-integrated calendar and email system brings a lot of efficiencies
to a mid-to-large sized organization - I know the change saved hours per week
for me personally, just in people and room scheduling. And support for mobile
devices is close to being required, not optional, these days.
- Gregg
--
Gregg TeHennepe
Sr. Manager, Research Liaison
Information Technology
The Jackson Laboratory
Bar Harbor, Maine
(207) 288-6068
The Jackson Laboratory: Leading the Search for Tomorrow's Cures
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