Shall we also consider the costs of anti-virus and anti-spam for Exchange server? Zimbra includes ClamWin and spam protection built-in - I know you can get that for Windows too, but this is out of the box guys... Also, Zimbra will probably run on fewer servers than an Exchange system... You know how MS advertises their SQL server does several trillion transactions per day for some company; they don't tell you how many machines it takes to do that kind of work... By using Linux (with Zimbra as your application), you'll probably be more efficient in your processing power... A good IT consultant will evaluate all of these costs to determine the final cost of a particular solution; the base software cost, the infrastructure cost, the security and backup/recovery costs, and the cost of the guys actually installing and maintaining the thing... Zimbra is by far, cheaper than the solutions provided by Microsoft (heck, anything open source is cheaper than Microsoft solutions!)... <div class="gmail_quote">On Thu, Dec 4, 2008 at 8:18 PM, Rashkae <<a href="mailto:ubuntu@tigershaunt.com">ubuntu@tigershaunt.com</a>> wrote: <blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="border-left: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); margin: 0pt 0pt 0pt 0.8ex; padding-left: 1ex;"> Joshua Martin wrote: > Um... I don't think Exchange is so inexpensive.... > > According to the Microsoft website, the cost of Exchange 2007 STANDARD is > $699, that's all well and good but when you calculate that you also have to > purchase a CAL for each user that needs to connect to the server (let's say > you have 25 users at Microsoft's cost of $67 per user or device), then you > have a total cost of $2374! > > Zimbra does not operate under a service license + CAL for each connecting > user; instead you make one purchase of support based on your number of > users. This means that for 25 users connecting to the STANDARD edition of > Zimbra, with one year of support, you'll only pay $875! > 875 * 5 years (I usually deploy a server for longer) = 4375. You need to pay annually for the commercial version of Zimbra that includes the Outlook connector. And you really don't want to the same comparison for, say, 30 users :) > Factoring in the cost of Windows Server (do you need CALs for users > connecting to the server?), the cost of the Exchange CALs, and the cost of > Microsoft's support year after year, MICROSOFT EXCHANGE IS NOT INEXPENSIVE > COMPARED TO OTHER GROUPWARE SOLUTIONS... Microsoft Support? you'd have to be a sucker to buy into that :) But I agree that cost of server + server Cal's is the devil in the details.. that's why I said earlier that Exchange is not expensive *if* you already have server and Active Directory for your users. -- ubuntu-users mailing list <a href="mailto:ubuntu-users@lists.ubuntu.com">ubuntu-users@lists.ubuntu.com</a> Modify settings or unsubscribe at: <a href="https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-users" target="_blank">https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-users</a> </blockquote></div> -- _________________________________ Joshua S. Martin CONFIDENTIALITY NOTE: This e-mail message, including any attachment(s), contains information that may be confidential, protected by the attorney client or other legal privileges, and or proprietary non public information. If you are not an intended recipient of this message or an authorized assistant to an intended recipient, please notify the sender by replying to this message and then delete it from your system. Use, dissemination, distribution, or reproduction of this message and or any of its attachments (if any) by unintended recipients is not authorized and may be unlawful.