Is google apps a viable replacement for exchange?

Chillimonster · 16 Aug 2010 at 13:58

At work we have an old server (P4 1.8 with 2gb ram) running SBS2003 with Exchange, serving 5 users and documents.

The documents are in the process of being transferred over to NAS drives (with auto off-site backups every night), but the emails need to be sorted.

Like i said they are currently sorted by Exchange on a POP connection and there are 5 users on there, but one of the reasons for the questions is that we need to put an additional 5-8 users on there and the old girl will not take it

The emails are filed under public folders, with all users having access to them, and each user also having there own @company email address that they use for individual emails.

The MD is keen to use an off site solution and Google Apps seems an obvious choice. Can google apps replicate this functionality with all emails being able to be tagged with clients names, with all users having access to them as well as their own company email address?

Thanks

Chris

Chillimonster · 16 Aug 2010 at 14:46

Eulogy said:
Have you looked at Hosted Exchange solutions?

I work for Cobweb (http://www.cobweb.com/) and we definitely do what you want on a Hosted Exchange 2007 platform for a few £ p/m per mailbox

Thanks - Will look at that later.

Chillimonster · 16 Aug 2010 at 20:38

All small emails, but quite a few of them.

at the moment we have all the emails coming into the server, then any addressed to the 'service@' account go to the public folder which are then actioned by one of the team and then filed within the subfolders of 'service'

The ones addressed to the team (EG 'tom' 'richard' ' harry' etc ) all get routed to the relevant users who have access to the service folder as well.

Chillimonster · 17 Aug 2010 at 11:14

As the file serving has been taken care of, the email thing is still giving me a headache.

Google Apps - No public folder support (although labels allows multiple labels to be assigned..)

SBS 2008 - Unwieldy, needs new hardware, expensive

Hosted Exchange - Cost per user is reasonable, off site, secure

Exchange alternatives (Workgroup Mail / Icewarp etc) - Dont know much about these, but can be run from a seperate PC and backed up to the NAS for offsite backup.

Where's the headache tablets!

Chillimonster · 18 Aug 2010 at 11:21

Yamahahahahaha said:
For a new server with Exchange 2010, Windows 2k8 R2 Enterprise edition (Needed for mailbox resiliancy, perhaps not necessary in your situation?), CALs for 15 users (Enterprise CALs to get the useful stuff like archive mailboxes), and all the other miscellanious bits, it's going to be 6 or 7 thousand at least.
Then it comes down to whether or not it's worth that much to your business.

As Eulogy has more spefically detailed, hosted Exchange 2010 offers a lot for a relatively low cost.

Waiting for Cobweb to ring me back after i put an enquiry in yesterday.

Thanks for the input guys

Chillimonster · 19 Aug 2010 at 17:11

Had a chat With Darren a couple of days ago, and with Steve today.

Just waiting for the 'Commercials' to be sorted then its all systems go.

Pit that the Public Folders can not be migrated easily, but not a major problem - just dragged them all out of the folders and onto a backup drive - will put them back in IF we need to - will be good to start with a clean sheet.