TCO is one of those very interesting marketing terms which companies use to prove their software is less expensive "in the long run". TCO is typically calculated by adding the initial software license expenditure (capex) to the overall operating costs (opex) and dividing by the expected useful lifetime of the software. It has very little to do with features/functionality.
When we looked at TCO, we included the salary and overhead for our IT resources involved in managing the Exchange servers as part of the operating expense.
There are a number of ways to do this, but we estimated that we needed approximately 1 IT resource for each 50 Exchange/Outlook desktops. This number is based on our experience with Exchange 2000. With a solution like those from Oracle or Communigate we estimated 1 per 75 (conservatively) and 1 per 100 (optimistically). The difference is due to our calculations of time/effort for performing basic server administrative tasks on each platform. Add a new user, delete a user, change a password, archive a mailbox, restore a mailbox, restore an individual message, etc.
At a loaded cost of $75K/year, the software license costs are only a portion of the total cost of Exchange/Outlook. BTW, for those that have tried, it is difficult to effectively cost an Outlook based workgroup solution. This is certainly done intentionally by M$. Outlook is not sold separately (last time I checked), so the only way to get it is in an Office bundle. So what does it really cost???
Exchange is about $100/seat. Maybe more for smaller customers, maybe less for large enterprises and government agencies.
We have more expertise on the UNIX side of the house and can perform these tasks more cost effectively on a non-Exchange platform.
BTW, this is the same logic and a similar methodology to the one use by the marketeers at M$ to show Windows 2003 server is less expensive than Linux. It can be used for good and evil. Buyer beware.
Integration with Outlook and replication of Exchange/Outlook functionality are two different things. We wanted the user experience to be seamless (integration with Outlook). No strange error messages, no issues with offline-synchronization etc. Communigate worked every time. The users never suspected they were not connected to Exchange. Oracle is supposed to be very good too. Sun, by their own admission claim BETA quality right now.
We do not use Outlook forms. A non-Exchange solution won't work in that situation.
Sun, Communigate and Oracle support a OWA equivalent--web-based email, calendaring. Oracle adds support for web based document management (pretty cool demo).
Ryan
On Mar 16, 2004, at 14:46, Robinson, Eric R. wrote:
We have developed a "warm" standby backup approach that mitigates the effects of a corrupt message store, but this workaround leads to a very high cost of ownership.
What causes the high TCO? It must be the cost of high-end server hardware,
because having a warm standby Exchange server does not require additional
CALs, which is usually the biggest monetary bite.
To make a long story shorter, we decided on Communigate Pro because of its flawless (http://www.infoworld.com/article/03/12/12/49TCstalker_1.html) integration with Outlook.
According to the article, it meets "most essential Exchange groupware
requirements," and supports "most" Exchange functionality. Also, it does not
support Outlook forms, which are an integral component of many companies'
internal communication strategy. I don't want to be mean, but this really
does not qualify as flawless. Add to that the fact that it does not have
anything very comparable to Outlook Web Access, and I'm not really sure you
can say it has a lower TCO.
--Eric
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