General Consultant Discussion

Replacement for Exchange - I have a client that asked me today about eliminating their Exchange Server that is hosted by local IT provider. They have about 25 users (about 15 are very basic) and are paying $40,000 in managed services. Google Docs for domains and other hosted services are possibilities. The big issue is public folders in Exchange. These are used to store email meesages that employees meed access to. Some of these folders are 15GB. Has anyone see where an interal Exchange server with public folders as been successfully replaced by a cloud solution?

I'm sure @PeterWolf can pipe in but we use SageCRM to file public emails. Works very nicely.

$40,000 annually? O.M.G. Yeah ... get them on GMail and use Google Docs or ... better still ... get a CRM system in there. @MyronStevenson - I'm not sure how much you know about or work with Sage CRM but I'm available tomorrow to discuss the pros and cons if you are interested / have the time.

I think Google Apps just came out with expanded delegated email capabilities - I've no idea if that would work in this case but I've also seen various add-ons such as this: https://www.google.com/enterprise/marketplace/viewListing?productListingId=3445+14751831419280050954&pli=1

Have a look around here -- https://www.google.com/enterprise/marketplace/

We offer Kerio Connect as a hosted mail alternative to Exchange. It is great when used from a browser, mobile device etc. The Outlook connector tends to be slower than a true Exchagne connection, but works well. Our largest deployment had over 100 mailboxes migrated from exchange.

Many great suggesttions! Thank you. I'll take time to explore and report back.

Why move them off Exchange if it's working? Sounds like they just need an IT partner that's not going to rob them. All of our IT customers that we manage have internal Exchange Servers and the customers with more than 25 users pay no where close to that in fees. I do agree that Sage CRM is a better solution for managing email and docs than Public Folders. In this case if it's just a matter of getting out from under the $40k commitment and keeping the status quo, just get another IT partner.