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Exchange Consulting?

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by tncpeterd

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My company needs an exchange server solution for around 200 users. I'm IT support for our company but setting up exchange servers reliably and quickly is a little shall we say, out of my league.

I need some advice on a good Exchange consulting company. Someone who can come in and draw out a solution for us and who can later setup/install the servers and setup our employees accounts and just leave me and our IT staff with administrative privilages.

We are based out of Northern California, San Francisco, Monterey, Sacramento and San Jose. We would like to base the exchange servers out of San Francisco , so a consulting company from the area would probably suffice.

Any and all input and ideas are greatly appreciated.

Thanks guys!
-Peter D.

5 replies

by jm

You may just be looking for a name but here I am with a mile high perspective on this. The resource for this is not a company with sales people sitting around waiting for the phone to ring but someone who is on a job right now doing an implementation.

You will have a better experience if you go with an individual who is dedicated to you for a period of time and who teaches you how to administer it. Companies are less likely to be very dedicated (typically highly skilled people will sell the job then lower skilled people will come in to try to do the work) and less likely to teach you how to take care of it (they count on ongoing support revenue, and will often undermine and/or discredit the IT people that are on staff.)

I'd post ads on DICE.COM and CRAIGSLIST for an independent consultant with 10+ years experience who has done a recent Exchange 2003 implementation and who has an EXCHANGE 2003 MCSE cert. Then make sure you talk to at least THREE of his recent references and preferably go and meet with them on site to check out his work. (Make sure he is referring you to high level people and not his buddy in the mail room.) You could expect to pay $50 to $100+/hour for this person and would want him on site full time for as long as it takes, probably six to eight weeks, to do the roll out.

The up front cost may be the same as a company but this will get you and your company much farther along and much more independent in the long run. You will get great training and make some great connections with other companies.

by rizavan

Hello,
i am messenging specialist from UK. I am also in contracting and consulting for messenging solution on exchange for all type of business. please email me on rizavan@msn.com

by kjell_andorsen

Setting up an Exchange solution for such a relativly small company shouldn't be that hard unless you have very specific and unusual needs. Probably a single exchange server or maybe a front-end/backend solution if you have alot of users that need to access it from the internet. If all you need is a good mail solution and have high-speed reliable connections between your sites and a well-managed Active directory environment it should be pretty simple to set up if you plan it carefully and follow the steps reccomended my Microsoft.

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