Last Updated on Monday, 28 December 2009 11:42 Friday, 10 July 2009 07:40

Q: We're growing and need more than Google Email and Apps for our work. So, we need to buy an Exchange server, right?

A: As businesses grow from startups with one or two people to ten or more people, they often experience their first growing pains if they haven't already established their IT infrastructure (servers, network, etc.) for planned growth. Even if the infrastructure was planned from the beginning, choices have to be made during the planning and later as the company grows.

Exchange and Windows are often thought of as the only choice for business servers, but technology has changed over the years creating serious no-cost alternatives for small business that often scale to 200 employees or more. The reason a startup business uses Google or Yahoo email in the first place is because it is free and easy to use. In today's highly competitive economy, making efficient, planned IT decisions can be the difference between being ahead of or behind your competition.

So, three options that are available to small businesses are Small Business Server 2008 limited with Exchange, SBS 2008 full with Exchange, and Linux with Zimbra. Here is a quick comparison of features with costs:

This comparison is based on the selling points of SBS 2008 used by Microsoft, so there are many features of a Linux and Zimbra installation that are not listed because they have no comparison in an SBS 2008 server. It also does not include hardware cost, but there are ways to avoid hardware costs today by hosting virtual servers with one of these three configurations.

The cost benefits make the choice of Linux and Zimbra obvious, but Microsoft partners will never show you this third alternative because it is in their own financial interest for you to choose a Windows/Exchange server for your business even if a no-cost alternative like Linux and Zimbra will work just as well. Of course, some businesses know they need Microsoft SQL Server or Exchange for some specialized software that they must use, and that changes the final decision making one of the SBS servers the preferred option.

Another technology change that has emerged in the last two to three years is the widespread adoption of virtual servers. In the past, you could drastically reduce your network infrastructure costs by putting your servers in a managed datacenter, effectively virtualizing a large percentage of your infrastructure and reducing costs through economies of scale. But, that didn't affect the cost of the servers themselves.

Now, it's common and there are even no-cost options to virtualize your servers so they are hosted in one physical server, drastically reducing the costs of the server hardware itself. There are even companies who will host your virtual servers in a managed datacenter environment, so you effectively virtualize not only your infrastructure, but even the server hardware itself. This gives the advantage of cloud computing while maintaining the integrity and security of your company's data.

So, you can see the choice isn't as simple as it once was when planning the growth of your small business. Some companies will make efficient, planned IT decisions that will help them stay ahead of their competition. Contact us and be one of those companies.