Hosted Exchange? A Better Deal?
Alexander Muse , December 22, 2007
Comments (0)Most of our clients use Exchange for their electronic email. If you spend time running the numbers comparing hosted Exchange to having your own internal Exchange solution I think you will find that an internal solution is less expensive. There are a few exceptions including companies who ONLY use Exchange ~ if your company has no other applications to manage it may be worth looking into a hosted solution. But if your company has an office with users you are better off leasing an Exchange solution from Dell. If you are interested we can sit down with you and explain.
Hosted Exchange providers would beg to differ. They even provide very amusing calculators. For example, Rackspace offers a hosted Exchange solution for 22 users for $11,861.52 per year. They claim that a similar internal solution would cost $227,255.00 in year one and $151,534.00 each year after that (see graphic at bottom). Huh? Really? Of course, Rackspace suggests that if you buy their hosted Exchange solution you won’t need bandwidth (i.e. your office no longer needs a T1), you won’t need servers (you can save your files on your laptops) and you won’t need IT support. Hosted Exchange is a great alternative to leasing software and equipment. If you don’t have a reason to use IT support besides email you should seriously consider a hosted solution, but if you have other applications that need support (i.e. computers, laptops, accounting software, backups, Blackberry devices, Treos, iPhones and so on) you might be better off leasing the software and equipment.
Why isn’t a hosted solution cheaper? Simple, Microsoft’s licensing arrangement does not allow a hosting provider to ’scale’. When you sell more licenses to Exchange you don’t get a better deal ~ you don’t get to pay less per license as you grow. Even worse, as you grow the software you need to manage a larger hosted Exchange environment grows. It actually becomes more expensive per user as you get bigger and bigger.
Forrester suggests IT departments NOT support iPhone
Alexander Muse , December 13, 2007
Without further ado, excerpts from the top 10 reasons Forrester recommends that IT not support the iPhone:
- Doesn’t natively support push business email or over-the-air calendar sync. … The iPhone can sync with Microsoft’s Exchange and IBM’s Lotus Notes over IMAP and SMTP ports, but your server and security admins have to configure their infrastructure to do so or purchase a mobile gateway from Synchronica or Azaleos….
- Doesn’t accommodate third-party applications, including those internally developed. … This is a showstopper for companies with enterprise mobility initiatives that require line-of-business applications like mobile sales force automation or an industry-specific application like mobile claims…
- Doesn’t support securing data on the device through encryption. There is no way for a company to natively secure the data on an iPhone with file or disk encryption…
- Can’t be remotely locked or wiped in the event of a lost or stolen device. …there is no way for IT to lock a device if — scratch that, when — users call the help desk and explain that they left their non-password-protected iPhone behind in a taxi…
- Lacks a hard keypad that provides feedback, which isn’t ideal for rapid and accurate input. … Many respected journalists have come to the conclusion that ultimately the keyboard “is a nonissue,”
but only after five days of use. In speaking with enterprise-class mobile device users on a daily basis, the vast majority have found that they need some form of tactile feedback from their QWERTY or numeric keyboards. …
- Has limited service provider support and its carrier lock-in inhibits flexibility. …To date, Apple has officially announced four exclusive carriers for France (Orange), Germany (T- Mobile), the UK (O2), and the United States (AT&T). Outside of these countries, the iPhone isn’t available yet…
- Comes with a premium price tag. …Sourcing analysts rely on corporatewide discounts when they place a bulk order with their carrier, but AT&T will not sell the iPhone to business accounts — only consumers. Because the iPhone is purchased directly by the user, there’s no taking advantage of the discount. Moreover, IT is stuck in an endless loop of reactively supporting the device, which limits the ability to provide best-in-class service….
- Is only the first generation. …even Apple enthusiasts admit that there are some weaknesses they’d like to see fixed in future generations, like making it easier to activate the device, improving the battery life and sound quality, and, most importantly, allowing it to connect to higher-speed networks (3G) …
- Lacks a removable battery, so when the battery kicks it, so does the device. … Apple does not sell replacement batteries for the iPhone. So when the battery dies, so does worker productivity….
- Lacks case studies of firms that have deployed it enterprisewide. … There is one known large enterprise that supports iPhones companywide, and it is Apple itself. Beyond that, we haven’t heard of many enterprises that have embraced the iPhone as a corporate device. And, as tough as it is to admit, the most trusted advisors to IT operations professionals aren’t industry analysts, journalists, or even the vendors themselves; it’s your peers…
Apple hiring Exchange Engineers to work on iPhone
Alexander Muse , December 13, 2007
Here is the job ad.
Server Monitoring and Support for INFOMART
Alexander Muse , December 6, 2007
Architel is located in the one of the largest data center buildings in the world. At over 1.3MM square feet the INFOMART is home to Equinix, Switch & Data (PAIX), DataSide, NaviSite, ColoSite, Verio and many other colocation facilities. Architel offers outsourced server monitoring and management for more than 100 clients. Given our proximity to so many colocation facilities we are now offering per server pricing for 24/7 server support and monitoring:
- Microsoft Windows Server Support – $225/month (INFOMART Only)
Includes 24/7 monitoring, operating system support, basic troubleshooting and on-site support M-F 8-5 (emergency on-site after hour support for an additional fee). Back-up is available for a one time fee of $500 per 100Gig of storage (back-up located in Architel’s data center).
- Linux Server Support – $195/month (INFOMART Only)
Includes 24/7 monitoring, operating system support, basic troubleshooting and on-site support M-F 8-5 (emergency on-site after hour support for an additional fee). Back-up is available for a one time fee of $500 per 100Gig of storage (back-up located in Architel’s data center).
Please contact sales@architel.com or call 214.550.2000 Option 1 for more information.
Dell PCs Now at Best Buy
Alexander Muse , December 6, 2007
Looking to buy a Dell laptop today? Don’t want to wait to have it shipped from Austin? You are in luck as Best Buy has announced that Dell will be selling several models of it’s XPS and Inspiron PCs including: the XPS M1330 in white, the Inspiron 1521 in blue and black, the Inspiron 1420 in black, and the all-in-one XPS One desktop. Other available desktops will be the Inspiron 530, 531, and 531s. [via crave]
iPhone 1.1.3 Update = voice recorder and disk mode!
Alexander Muse , December 6, 2007
According to Electronista,
Apple may be preparing a significant update for the iPhone as early as this weekend that will have some heavily requested features, according to a claim from CNET France. The site points to multiple reports that a 1.1.3 upgrade for the iPhone will appear by Saturday which adds both a disk mode for storing general data on the device and a voice recording mode for capturing lectures or voice memos. The disk feature behaves like the equivalent for iPods and will still block users from simply dragging and dropping content to load the phone with playable music, CNET says. Enabling disk mode should still allow knowledgeable users to browse the content on the phone, though this is not expected to be of any use to the hacking community, which has already gained access to the phone’s software.
While unverified, the reported release would come roughly a month after the 1.1.2 update that added international keyboard support and other minor upgrades to the iPhone for its launches in Germany and the UK. The release would be at least partly consistent with Apple’s past practices, as the firm released the 1.1.2 update towards the end of the week.
It is also likely to break existing modifications to the firmware that allow the iPhone to run third-party code or unlock the device to run with carriers outside of those approved by Apple.
ActiveSync for iPhone Status
Alexander Muse , December 5, 2007
Earlier this year we learned that Apple had licensed Microsoft’s ActiveSync technology. According to Mary Jo Foley’s sources, “Apple will announce that it has licensed the Exchange ActiveSync licensing protocol. Via the licensing arrangement, Apple iPhone users will be able to connect to Exchange Server and make use of its wireless messaging and synchronization capabilities.”
More recently Mary Jo updated her original story explaining that “Apple may be holding off on a big-bang announcement until the fall. Not sure. Neither Microsoft nor Apple has denied that the licensing deal was signed; both are simply saying no comment.”
So look for something in the fall, ug…
PDF editing with Docudesk
Alexander Muse , December 2, 2007
Alex Saunders had a great pointer to Docudesk:
Yesterday I spent a couple of hours putting the finishing details on renting several of our Cancun timeshares. In the process I had to fill out some forms telling the resort the names of the people who would be staying in them. The forms were sent to me as PDFs, and I was supposed to manually fill them in, and send them back via fax. Ugh… painfully slow, plus nobody can read my handwriting anymore.
Enter Docudesk. Desk UNPDF Professional can convert PDF files into word processing documents, spreadsheets, editable bitmaps, and web pages. Simply load the PDF file into unPDF Pro, punch the convert button, and seconds later, out pops an editable .DOC file (if you’re a Microsoft Word user).
I converted the form, filled out in word, dropped in a scanned signature, and then used the Office 2007 Save as PDF feature to convert the whole thing back into a PDF file again. Easy Peasy!
By the way, the Save as PDF feature in Office 2007 is a fabulous feature. It lacks only one feature that would make it truly useful — print to PDF. One of the most common scenarios that I experience is having to PDF a web page, and for this, the Office 2007 feature is useless. It can only save files from within the Office 2007 applications, not the browser.
Docudesk has Print to PDF covered as well, though. Their DeskPDF is an inexpensive and easy to use PDF printer driver that enables you to convert any document to PDF. I used it yesterday to extract two pages from a five page PDF document, and send them as a much smaller PDF document.
Docudesk deskUNPDF and deskPDF are a pair of highly useful utilities. For simple PDF editing jobs, they’re hard to beat. Best of all, Docudesk has a bundle of the two for just $59.
