“There can be only one” …business e-mail server
It will come as no surprise to you, if I share a long standing opinion I have regarding the leading business e-mail system (if the leading logo didn’t give it away already). You guessed it, Microsoft Exchange!
During my career in IT I have heard of, participated in or influenced many migrations from alternate solutions, the most common being IBM’s Lotus Notes. However the next wave of cloud based competitors are trying to penetrate this emerging and highly lucrative market, Google being a major contender in this space.
Back in June 2009 Google bleeted about how Serena Software made the switch from Exchange to Google Apps, and upon completion of this then successful migration Serena’s Director of IT, Ron Brister was happy to share:
We made the switch globally, all in one day – and, due to the advantages of this cloud computing solution, we’ve never looked back.
However less than a year on, it seems that this success was short lived. Serena are now a happy Microsoft customers once again, with a subsequent migration to Exchange, SharePoint and Office Online.
As a result of Serena’s experience with Google, Brister stated:
There are alternatives on the market that promise lower costs, but in our experience, this is a fallacy. When looking at alternatives, CIOs should really evaluate the total cost of ownership as well as the impact on user productivity and satisfaction, as there can be hidden costs and higher TCO. For instance, slow performance and/or lack of enterprise-class features (e.g., with calendaring and contact management) will torpedo the value of such a backbone system, and may get the CIO fired.
Ron, I couldn’t agree with you more. P.S. I respect you for having the balls to make these steps in the first place! 🙂
