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Downgrade from MS Exchange

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by dillmein

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I am the network administrator for an organization that has 19 branch offices in three counties serving approximately 350 user. We are currently using MS Exchange 5.5 Server and Outlook for corporate mail. However, my manager is dead set on switching from Exchange to something free (anything) off the web. No, we are not having any problems with Exchange and all the users seem to be confortable using the client. The reason for the change is because my manager and her boss is one of those Bill Gates bashers and want to get away from anything with Microsoft in it's name. How do I convience these idiots that one, getting away from anything with Microsoft in it's name is virtually impossible; two, why would anyone want to downgrade their IT department techonology to something 'free'. I am sure there are some good free mail software out there but I would think that the push would be to at least stay in the main stream of the corporate world. What can I do. How do I get management to stop looking backwards and move this department into the 21st century.

3 replies

by lordinfidel

If they have already paid for the exch licenese and cals, then that is it. They do not have to pay for anything else. There are no recurring licensing fees.

And, if they migrate over, it is not free. It does cost time and money plus there is alearning curve involved.

The only real free mail systems out there are linux based.

While I am not a big fan of M$. I am a huge propenent of Exchange. It is by hands down the flagship of Mail Exchangers on the market today.

If they are too ignorant to see that, then they get what they deserve.

by jereg

I understand their feeling. I have Exchange 5.2 on an NT4 box. I'm going to have to upgrade or replace it this year. I too would like a "free" mail system, but I don't think one exists that can do what I need it to do. I've worked with GroupWise andNotes and they are both good systems, but still costly. However, Oracle is releasing and email system that uses Outlook, (or whatever) as clients, and is supposed to be much cheaper. I'm going to be looking into that in the next few weeks. After all, users don't care what engine you use, as long as stuff works.

by lordinfidel

You must mean 5.5?

Why don't you just make a new 2K box, install exch 5.5 on it, join it into the same site.

And migrate your mailboxes over to it.

5.5 on 2k is incredibly stable. I have a cluster of exch servers on 2K adv server for the last 2 years and it just runs. It has not even been susceptible to the "monthly reboot" plagued by NT4.

I would take the time and install exch on the correct/killer exchange subsytem.

2 controllers
first controller
raid 1 for the os (2 9's)
raid 0 for the logs (2 18's drives)

2nd controller
raid 5 for IS (3 9's [for standard] or 3/4x #gig [for enterpise]
raid 1 for online backups and mta (2 18's/36)

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