Too bad not everyone is willing to listen to reason.
It's precisely because of experiences such as what you describe that I recommended going with something -- anything -- other than MS Exchange at a previous place of employment. The VP was all gung-ho about migrating from a Qmail system to MS Exchange. To satisfy his desire for Outlook extensions and the bullet point feature list of Exchange, I ended up saying we should go with Open-Xchange instead. Anyone else at the company who had an opinion agreed with me as well, that MS Exchange would be a problem.
Almost everyone at the company who did any of the real work there was on a Linux laptop or workstation (algorithms and tracking systems development). Introducing an MS Exchange server would have simply made life difficult for them. The VP's suggested solution: "Maybe we should just move everyone to Windows." That went over like a lead balloon.
Among other concerns that were raised, was the "with every Exchange server you need a full-time MCSE to admin the thing" factor.
Somehow, though, being basically the entire IT department myself, I ended up being the VP's target for his frustration over his "opinion" (mostly gathered from an advertisement he saw in a magazine -- really and truly, he showed me the ad) not being regarded universally as perfect and without negative side-effects. A conflict of personality began to grow at that point, ultimately leading to me and that company parting company.
Other than the VP and the President, that was an excellent place to work. Such a shame.
