Other than Outlook, are there any advantages using Exchange 2007 or 2010 with other Office 2007 or 2003 applications? I'm trying to convince the company to move from being hosted with Google Apps and implementing Exchange 2010. White papers, articles, personal experience are all welcome. Thanks.

I think that's more of a personal thing. I mean you get the benefit of hosting it all internal so all of your corporate stuff stays inside. There may be a cost savings depending on how large you are.Mark Morowczynski|MCT| MCSE 2003:Messaging, Security|MCITP:ES, SA,EA|MCTS:Windows Mobile Admin|Security+|http://almostdailytech.com

Mark, Thanks for the response. We have 52 mailboxes now via Google Apps. I received two quotes on Exchange 2010, CALS, Windows Server 2008 and the hardware with Mirrored C: Drives and RAID D: for the mailboxes. It was quite staggering! AND the two quotes where $10K a part in price?! I've not implemented an Exchange Server before and was looking for some experienced help. At the prices quoted, I'll never be able to convince management to go for Exchange without a lot of solid, valuable reasons to make the switch. It will take a lot of those to outweigh the costs! Regards. Allan

There is also an admin cost to maintain Exchange in house. What reason do you want to to put Exchange in? Do you have a way to access web mail? Do you want to keep all your data in house? That is the biggest reason. Do you already have a domain set up?Mark Morowczynski|MCT| MCSE 2003:Messaging, Security|MCITP:ES, SA,EA|MCTS:Windows Mobile Admin|Security+|http://almostdailytech.com

Hey Mark, The number one reason is security. I like having the server here, behind our firewall where I can say without doubt that internally sent e-mail is secure as it is not going out to Google and bouncing around the cloud then back to us. Mail to the outside world is handled by a policy based and on-demand encryption service and of course only for sensitive correspondence. We have a domain setup hosted by a third party, our e-mail is with Google Apps and we use Outlook to access our mail. I question whether we are actually setup properly with Google Apps for the e-mail piece as I've only been here a couple of months and am still trying to get a handle on everything. All of this is a moot point as I doubt very much the Exchange Server will make it to the board. If it does, I'm toast anyway because I don't have concrete reasons for them to make the switch from Google Apps to Exchange. Probably just as well at this point, it works for now and there are bigger fish to fry. The Exchange implementation is a line item under "The Blue Sky Projects" along with several other implementations that I would like to see happen but will likely not.

Hi Aln, I am not too familiar with Google apps but here's what I always say when pitching Exchange servers: 1. Security - Stuff is inside, like Mark said. Database can be backed locally and secured locally. When it's in a hosting center, how can you really be sure that it's secure? When so many tech get their hands in on it, security breaches and likelihood of human error increases. I have had experiences with clients that use hosting providers that claim they back up daily only to find out there is total data loss because the backups were not being monitored. 2. Storage - Exchange let you control limits; mailbox storage, attachment sizes, etc. Depending on Exchange version, you can have huge databases that give you instant access to years worth of emails. You also control archiving, time stamp backups and long term archival backups so no important stuff is lost, ever! 3. Integration - Many apps integrate with Exchange - Blackberry Enterprise, MS Office Products, Sharepoint and Software like Client Profile, SAP and many more 4. Control - With exchange you can monitor user's mailboxes, message tracking, etc. You have granular control over your mail flow. 5. Look at Google's SLA : 99.9% sound good, but if you think about it's really not. Five nines in the IT standard I have learned to strive for. MiguelMiguel Fra / Falcon ITS Computer and Network Service and Support, Miami, Fl

Hopefully this gives you enough info for what you need. Mark Morowczynski|MCT| MCSE 2003:Messaging, Security|MCITP:ES, SA,EA|MCTS:Windows Mobile Admin|Security+|http://almostdailytech.com

Miguel, Good points! We'll see what the new year brings?! Maybe a little luck will flow my way and they'll jump on board. There are so many non-IT initiatives for this coming year and I suspect not much will happen regarding this line item. Thank you.

Thanks Mark. Appreciate your comments.