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Microsoft Exchange vs Open-Source Alternatives

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by kenhkan

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Hi everyone, I am just wondering which one is more preferable among network administrators who manage their own email system. Previously, my company have outsourced email solution, which I dislike a lot. Setting aside the concern of budget since we've received a free copy of Exchange 2003 Standard from Microsoft for being a non-profit. Anyhow, in terms of reliability, usefulness, support, and speed, Exchange or other Opne-Source alternatives such as Zimbra will be more favorable? So I decide to turn to experienced adminsitrators. What do you think?

6 replies

by uofa

You got an Enterprise product for free. Why wouldn't you implement it? Unless you are a linux expert. Exchange 2003 is a very solid product. Functional and easy to setup and administer. Alot more exchange experts and help on the net i'm sure. Fire it up on a nice Dell entry level server and your set.

by rchaudry

I'm currently helping a non-profit organization (501C-3) myself and was wondering what's available out there for free.

Where would I go to apply for all this freeware?

by jcp0112

I've tried bynari insight server and it was very easy to install and manage. They support exchange alternative for outlook. Their site is www.bynari.net

by clarence.mills

Exchange is used by a majority of business alike but the open source software has been gaining traction because of it's usability, reliableness and speed. Google is now offering Google mail integration platform that includes everything that exchange has, mail client, calendaring, notification.

Support has always been a problem but companies such as sourceforge are know offering support to companies looking to support open source applications.

Zimbra has been bought by Yahoo recently which shows that open source software must be dong something right.

It also helps that websites like http://www.opensitesolutions.com are also spreading the word about alternative open source software that can replace commercial software. The following page describes some exchange alternatives http://www.opensitesolutions.com/services/network.php

by emmaylots

Hi,
Since you have a free copy of exchange server, I would advise you to stick with it, for now. At least until you expand and you've used up the CALS. Open source Collaboration tools are great and very reliable, e.g. Zimbra. Once you wish to expand, you can easily migrate to other open source mail servers.
Cheerio.

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