Alternatives to Microsoft Exchange?
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I have a favor to ask my fellow Lockergnome bloggers.
My office has been trying MS’s Exchange program for about three weeks now. So far it hasn’t worked properly yet, but that’s not even my issue. I was willing to give it a try based on the recommendation of the local computer tech company that our office uses. I think our problems with email delivery, transfer of contacts, calendars, etc. are almost worked out, but the program itself doesn’t behave the way we want it to. Big surprise, since exchange is based on Outlook, which in my opinion is a pile of junk.
What we want is simply to be able to pick multiple contacts at once when composing a message and the same for attachments. I know it isn’t too much to ask for an email program to allow multiple contacts and multiple attachments at one time. My personal email already does this. However, we have a business website with domain based email accounts. I can’t have a bunch of XXX@gmail (or whatever) accounts.
Another very important issue is cost. We’re a small company with shallow pockets. We’ve already blown a bundle on exchange licensing and configuration. We can’t afford to keep handing out money indiscriminately.
Can anyone suggest (and vouch for) any web based alternative email programs to MS exchange that are low or no cost? I’m also talking to my local tech about this, but I figure if I ask a large audience, I might get several options to check into. I hope some of you can help. Any input is appreciated!
5 Comments
sidd
October 17th, 2008
at 9:53am
Your exchange ain’t setup right. For small offices I’d suggest either try hosted exchange such as http://www.mi8.net/, there are many providers. Or look into http://www.zimbra.com/ which I have no experience with. Avoid Lotus mail server.
Bill C
October 17th, 2008
at 4:03pm
google apps and add your domain name… it will use googles servers and use own domain name for mail…
Ryan
October 17th, 2008
at 6:19pm
Google Apps for your domain for sure. Even large companies can benefit from having their exchange servers dismantled in favor of Google. Shoot me an email and I can lend a hand.
Aryeh Goretsky
October 18th, 2008
at 3:09am
Hello,
Just to check, you are separating the contacts (names or email addresses) in the To: field with a semi-colon (”;”) character and not a comma (”,”) character, aren’t you? Every email client I had used prior to Microsoft Outlook used a comma as a separator, but for some reason, Microsoft Outlook defaults to a semi-colon.
As for why you cannot attach multiple files at the same time, I really do not have any idea. In the Insert File dialog, I can typically use Ctrl and click with my primary mouse button to select a group of files one at a time, or drag them from Windows Explorer into a message.
Regards,
Aryeh Goretsky
Tom
October 18th, 2008
at 6:31am
I would also highly recommend Google Apps. It doesn’t necessarily solve the problem of multiple contacts, but it does provide great services, including document sharing, the gmail interface, google sites, chat, calendar, and all for free. You can also use all of these with your own custom domain name. Feel free to send me an email if you need help along the way. I use this for all of my clients and myself as well. You can check out their options, the one I always use is free, but there is an upgraded edition as well. You can take a look at http://www.google.com/a/