Microsoft continues to please their existing customers

4 minutes ago, Bass wrote

@giovanni:

Exchange uses a proprietary and seemly intentionally obfuscated monolithic protocol that many mail clients don't support. Zimbra uses open standards like IMAP and CalDAV.

The problem with Microsoft technology is they tend to only well properly with other Microsoft technology. I'm never encountered a situation where everything is 100% Microsoft technology in any organization I worked for, so using Exchange is makes people's lives harder and makes the organization less flexible. So it's not friendly competition, using or promoting Exchange or other tools like SharePoint is actually somewhat malicious.

So what? We are discussing if Exchange should or should not be boundled to Windows SBS.

@giovanni:

Fine.

"We are discussing if Exchange should or should not be boundled to Windows SBS."

No it should not, because anything that makes limits people's options to deploy Exchange or SharePoint is a positive development. Looks like we are in agreement, I guess!

@Bass: I guess we agree on the conclusion, not exactely on the reason, but this does not seem the topic of this discussion.

19 hours ago, evildictaitor wrote

Actually Microsoft haven't EOLed non-cloud stuff yet:

Windows Server 2012 Essentials has been designed to give you the flexibility to choose which applications and services run on-premises and which run in the cloud. In contrast to Windows SBS Standard, Essentials offers lower up-front acquisition and deployment costs. It allows you to take advantage of cloud-based messaging offerings while enjoying an integrated management experience by subscribing to Office 365 or a hosted Exchange service. If you prefer a fully on-premises solution, you have the option of running Exchange Server on a second server (either as a physical or virtual machine) alongside Essentials with the same integrated management experience.

Windows Server 2012 Essentials doesn't have virtualization rights, so I'd need to buy a second server and another Windows Server License. And I'd need to purchase Exchange Server separately. And then there'd be whatever CALs are required.

@DCMonkey: No, you can run Windows Server 2012 as a virtual machine on the same physical server as the other virtual machines. I am currently using this configuration with SBS 2011 and it allows me to easily change the hardware in case of a faliure (SBS 2011 supports only 1 NIC so no redundancy there). In this article there is a link to a PDF that confirms that this senario will be supported in Windows Server 2012 Essentials.

As I said before, if you spend the money to propersly secure the network for such a critical application such as email, the license of an extra Windows Server is not the major cost.

9 hours ago, giovanni wrote

@DCMonkey: No, you can run Windows Server 2012 as a virtual machine on the same physical server as the other virtual machines. I am currently using this configuration with SBS 2011 and it allows me to easily change the hardware in case of a faliure (SBS 2011 supports only 1 NIC so no redundancy there). In this article there is a link to a PDF that confirms that this senario will be supported in Windows Server 2012 Essentials.

As I said before, if you spend the money to propersly secure the network for such a critical application such as email, the license of an extra Windows Server is not the major cost.

Ah, I see. The Windows Server License gives me  virtualization rights and I run Essentials in one of the VMs, saving me the additional hardware costs.

1 day ago, AndyC wrote

And if your on-site premises internet connection has reliability/bandwidth issues, the absolute last thing you want to be doing is running your Exchange server at the end of it.

Wrong. If you use pop3 connectors (lots of small business do) then Exchange's bandwidth is minimal.

Securing such a setup is also pretty easy - suitable routers with firewall cost under 100$, and there are special offerings for SBS setups from AV firms, for example:
http://www.avira.com/en/for-business-avira-small-business-security-suite

So running an SBS can be cheaper than go for a full-cloud solution. Also, please don't forget, in many parts of the (developed!) world you just can't get suitable connections needed for something like Office 365. What do you recommend these people?

So if you need Exchange, and replacements like Kerio don't cut it, because you have software that depends on Exchange (like the fax case by one of the posters on the blog), then Microsoft did you in the rear end.

Previous price:

SBS Server - 900$
Total: 900$

Now:

SBS Essentials:           425$
Win Server Standard:  882$ (you can't install Exchange on SBS Essentials)
Exchange Server:        1500$

Total: 2807$ ! That's an increase of 212% ! And you wonder why people are pissed? Especially those with poor internet connections?

And that's the best case (if you can run both servers virtualized). If you have shabby SBS hardware, you also need a second physical server.. And don't forget The CAL licenses for Win Server Standard and Exchange. With all this combined, Microsoft scored easily a 500% price increase in the worst case.

Again, with this math.. you're wondering why these people are enraged?

@wastingtimewithforums:That is not the whole story. Email is a very important (critical) tool for businesses of any size and you cannot afford that your server goes offline for more than a few monutes per month.

Having an on premise email server means being able to quickly respond to power, hardware and internet connection failures. An internet gateway with a redundant internet connection costs way more than 100$, not to mention redundant power supplies, redundant ans spare hardware (let me remind you that SBS supports only one physical NIC, who would run a critical server on a single physical NIC??? The only workaround I know is to have the SBS in a virtual environment).

If you factor all of that together, very few small businesses have the interest to run an on premise mail server.

Oh, and you forgot to mention that you need CALs for SBS (only the first five are included).

7 minutes ago, giovanni wrote

Having an on premise email server means being able to quickly respond to power, hardware and internet connection failures. An internet gateway with a redundant internet connection costs way more than 100$, not to mention redundant power supplies, redundant ans spare hardware (let me remind you that SBS supports only one physical NIC, who would run a critical server on a single physical NIC??? The only workaround I know is to have the SBS in a virtual environment).

My example uses pop3 connectors (very common in small businesses). With these, a temporary server outage isn't the end of the world, because your mail still gets catched. Sure, you can't send mails, but if your SBS is offline (even essentials) you also lose your AD and file server, so you need to fix it up anyway to continue working.

Redudant internet connection? A firewall router like this one is completely sufficent in most cases.

7 minutes ago, giovanni wrote

Oh, and you forgot to mention that you need CALs for SBS (only the first five are included).

Sure, but now that amounts doubles (one for Server Standard, one for Exchange). And if you have lots of users, it even tripples (CALs for SBS Essentials)

And again, what's your suggestion to people who just CANNOT even move to the cloud? Due to the internet connection and other reasons (legal)?

By far not all SMBs moved to cloud computing. Sure there is a trend to adopt it, but does this warrant to kill right away a successful product with a 15 year old history? Same with Win 8, yeah, touch is hip - let's immediately bonker our flag ship product!

"Nu Microsoft" (the kind Wozniak seems to love) is bloody dangerous.

@wastingtimewithforums: My experience has been that hosting your email server outside of the company is much, much cheaper. Sure, the lack of Exchange in SBS makes it even more so, but there are many security advantages including that a potential hardware failure still allows people to work with offline files for a day or two.

The most severe accident I had was when the local phone company (Orange by the way, not a garage business), mislabeles a connection and cut our phone line for more than 48 hours (we had a business contract not a home phone line btw). Now, that is exceptional of course, but I was glad our email server was not on premises.

1 hour ago, wastingtimewithforums wrote

Previous price:

SBS Server - 900$
Total: 900$

Now:

SBS Essentials:           425$
Win Server Standard:  882$ (you can't install Exchange on SBS Essentials)
Exchange Server:        1500$

Total: 2807$ ! That's an increase of 212% ! And you wonder why people are pissed? Especially those with poor internet connections?

Not to take away from your other points, but the Standard edition of SBS 2011 (the present version of SBS that comes with Exchange, not SBS 2011 Essentials) already needs CALs at $80 a piece, which is about $5600 to fill out the 75 user limit (not counting the 5 CALs you get with the server). Only Essentials does not require CALs. 

27 seconds ago, Craig_Matthews wrote

*snip*

Not to take away from your other points, but the Standard edition of SBS 2011 (the present version of SBS that comes with Exchange, not SBS 2011 Essentials) already needs CALs at $80 a piece, which is about $5600 to fill out the 75 user limit (not counting the 5 CALs you get with the server). Only Essentials does not require CALs. 

Yes, but you need to pay up three times the amount (3 * 80) now

1 for Win Server Standard
1 for Exchange
1 for SBS Essentials (if you have more than 25 users)

3*80 > 1*80 (Well, approximately, since the Exchange CAL is a bit cheaper)

Regarding cost, let me quote one more comment from the SBS blog (bear in mind that many businesses run their SBS servers indeed for 8-10 years):

For a 30 user small business, the increase in costs are staggering if you wanted to go with microsoft's cloud services. these are open license costs...
SBS 2011 Standard w/ 30 CALs -  $2377

Comparable on-premise solution (two Windows 2008 R2 standard servers, 30 windows CALs, Exchange 2010 standard, 30 exchange CALs) - $4702

SBS Essentials – not an option
Windows 2008 R2 Standard w/ 30 User CALS: $1511

Exchange online @ $4/month per mailbox: $1440/yr  - 10 year cost: $15,911

How are your partners supposed to be able to justify an over $11,000 cost increase of a solution to move to the cloud?   These numbers are even more staggering once you get closer to the 75 user limit of SBS.

12 minutes ago, giovanni wrote

The most severe accident I had was when the local phone company (Orange by the way, not a garage business), mislabeles a connection and cut our phone line for more than 48 hours (we had a business contract not a home phone line btw). Now, that is exceptional of course, but I was glad our email server was not on premises.

Excuse me, is this argument actually Pro-Cloud?!

As I said, I am talking about a pop3 connector case (very common with SBS, especially if your net connection is rocky). In your case, losing the internet connection while using Office 365 is far more disastrous. If you lose the connection to the cloud, you lose EVERYTHING.

If an SBS with a pop3 connector loses internet connection, you can't fetch and receive mails anymore, but everything else is still working. Internal mails including. Once the connection is back, the server just fetches the newer mails from the pop3 accounts, not one single mail is lost.

26 minutes ago, giovanni wrote

The most severe accident I had was when the local phone company (Orange by the way, not a garage business), mislabeles a connection and cut our phone line for more than 48 hours (we had a business contract not a home phone line btw). Now, that is exceptional of course, but I was glad our email server was not on premises.

In a situation with an on-premises Exchange server and extended loss of Internet connectivity -- if any email messages get lost, the entire setup is wrong. Businesses running SBS aren't handling their own MX, mailbagging, or spam filtering. Those things are in the cloud, safely holding onto your inbound email until your Internet connectivity returns and your SBS server's POP connector activates. Having Exchange in the cloud means you lose more functionality during an Internet outage than you would with on-premises. To reiterate, Outlook and Exchange aren't just used for swapping emails between in-house workers and external parties. By far the biggest use is internal emails and calendar sharing, none of which use the Internet when hosted on-site. You lose that and other functionality when Exchange is externally hosted and there's an Internet outage.

@wastingtimewithforums: With Office 365 (or many other "cloud" solutions) you don't loose everything, it is just temporarily inaccessible and in an emergency you can use your home internet connection or cellphone for a limited period of time. If you lose a connection for 48+ hours, I am not sure pop3 connectors are the answer if you have an on premises mail server.

I don't agree with you that the cost of SBS standard with 30 CALs is only $2377. That simply does not take into account the resources needed to have the same level of service as a large datacenter. This does not factor in upgrades (software and hardware), added complexity, and the cost of backups and hardware resources in case of: fire, thefts, water damage, lightening, etc.

2 hours ago, wastingtimewithforums wrote

Exchange online @ $4/month per mailbox: $1440/yr  - 10 year cost: $15,911

How much do you suppose the salary for an Exchange Admin compares with that? Or even the call out costs for every problem encountered? And that's before you get onto things like backup costs and so on.

And, while pop3 connector type solutions might have sufficied a few years back, just as IMAP solutions like Zimbra might have once done, even a small business owner these days is going to expect always-available push access to their email, contacts and calander on their phone and putting your Exchange at the end of an unreliable connection is going to make for problems (probably more so than internal loss in the office, where people tend to just cope by talking to each other)

What has been ignored so far is that with an Office 365/Exchange Online plan, you're getting all software updates included on top of not having to buy your own infrastructure.

If you install SBS and forego any upgrades over a 10 year period, you'll definitely save money over paying for Office 365, but we're already talking about complaints coming from those that INTEND to upgrade. So if you take the original $2377 (as referenced by waste) and multiply that x3 over a 10 year period, the difference in price is not as pronounced, especially since we're not even considering the hardware upgrades during that time.

If we're talking about the small business that does not upgrade the software or hardware at all during a 10 year period, I would say that that's an edge case.

Speaking of these companies that run their Exchange servers without upgrading for 10 years...

If they recently upgraded to SBS 2011, they really have nothing to complain about until 2022.

If they're currently running SBS 2003 and are planning to upgrade in the next couple of years, they'll still be able to acquire SBS 2011 in the next couple years. Why would they even care that SBS 2011 won't be the "latest and greatest" two years from now? They went 10-12 years running SBS 2003 after all.