Exchange in future and Google Apps - Real World
lespaulman74
Member Posts: 26 ■□□□□□□□□□
Hi everyone,
Just wanted to ask what everyone thought of the Exchange's fate in the future.
I ask because I know several administrators, including myself that managed an Exchange server for several offices - and when you consider the cost of MS licenses, overhead and time it takes maintain an exchange server - many of them simply had their mail managed by Google Apps (business, $50 per account). Which is really nice - mail, IM, calendar, tasks, etc.
Im my situation I was wearing multiple hats, so it made much more sense to put our mail "in the cloud" and not have to worry about it. The only con, I see, to having Google host your mail is corporate privacy - but unless your NASA, FBI or the CIA - I dont see a concern.
Am I missing or not foreseeing the fate of Exchange?
Is it worth furthering my study of Exchange technology, when they may be (possibly) blown out of the water by Google and the likes in 5-7 yrs?
Just wanted to ask what everyone thought of the Exchange's fate in the future.
I ask because I know several administrators, including myself that managed an Exchange server for several offices - and when you consider the cost of MS licenses, overhead and time it takes maintain an exchange server - many of them simply had their mail managed by Google Apps (business, $50 per account). Which is really nice - mail, IM, calendar, tasks, etc.
Im my situation I was wearing multiple hats, so it made much more sense to put our mail "in the cloud" and not have to worry about it. The only con, I see, to having Google host your mail is corporate privacy - but unless your NASA, FBI or the CIA - I dont see a concern.
Am I missing or not foreseeing the fate of Exchange?
Is it worth furthering my study of Exchange technology, when they may be (possibly) blown out of the water by Google and the likes in 5-7 yrs?
Comments
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dynamik
Banned Posts: 12,312 ■■■■■■■■■□
You can have people host Exchange for you for $10-12/month per user as well. Check out companies like MailStreet.
Exchange is a much more robust solution than what Google currently offers, but if you don't need any of that additional functionality, Google is a great way to go. I actually have them hosting email for my domain, and it works great on my iPhone
You might see companies migrating to hosted Exchange solutions, but Exchange itself isn't going to go anywhere anytime soon. It may just move to larger organizations and data centers (or companies concerned about privacy, as you mentioned).