I downloaded and read this whitepaper from Microsoft and, quite honestly, it appears to be a pathetic, almost panicked attempt to mitigate the continuing growth of open-source email solutions in the marketplace.
The article makes many assumptions, such as:
1. You are running a Microsoft Server.
2. You are using Microsoft Outlook (exclusively) as your email client.
3. You are using Microsoft Office (exclusively) for your office applications.
4. You won’t notice the exorbitant costs incurred with keeping current with Microsoft’s license requirements.
5. Critical Path and Oracle are just two of the “low-cost” competitors mentioned in the paper, but there are many, many more.
I don’t dispute that Microsoft Exchange and Outlook are great products – they should be for the price.
However, if you can escape the Microsoft groupthink mentality long enough to consider the fact that there are Sendmail, Exim, Postfix, Qmail, and a host of other MTAs that have been smoothly running on alternative platforms for months, if not years. Also, these MTAs fully support collaboration, scalability, and integrate with alternate email clients, office applications, and groupware software/suites, such as:
1. Mutt, Pine, Evolution, etc.
2. OpenOffice, KDE’s KOffice, Lotus Domino, Novell, etc.
3. Eventum (issue management), PHPronjekt, PHPGroupware, many more.
The task of deploying and implementing these solutions is becoming easier with every new revision, and the cost of maintenance is extremely comparable with Microsoft’s less secure solutions.
Just had to pipe in my two cents.
This article just bothered me… kind of like those lame Bud Light commercials on TV who’s point is to counteract those ads by Miller Lite.
Just a bit pathetic.