Exactly... I bougth mac mini but it's secondary computer used mainly for web browsing. It's going to be next to impossible for me to switch - there are just too many Windows only applications. Even the ported applications are not quite the same as in Windows and this has caused issues.
>My experience with Exchange has been that it falls over frequently. That was a long time ago now, and I imagine it's much improved, >but instability was the hallmark of my Exchange experience for some time. The MTBF was probably about 3-5 days.
This can only be a result of a poor admin/setup. Even with our 5.5 servers there is only scheduled downtime every couple of months but with our clustered 2003 Exchange setup we have 2-3 minutes scheduled downtime once in a while and that's about it. If I had to deal with half hour outages or delayed emails I'd be hearing from management and switching to another product ASAP.
With Exchange you need an admin with 3-5 years hands on experience with a wide array of issues from client troubleshooting to aligning disks in SAN. Architecting the mail infrastructure is critical. Unfortunately there are morons who run the Exchange setup wizard and click around in ADUC a couple times and wonder why the whole thing falls apart in a couple weeks. Just like you wouldn't expect a guy who just read Linux for Dummies to be able to setup sendmail like rock you can't expect the same from someone who hasn't admined Exchange for at least a couple years.
I just hate it when those legacy products like Exchange keep rising in market share (from the current ~60% to a projected ~80% in 5 years) and adding features not available in competitor products (e.g. OMA, OWA).
If you look at GroupWise or Notes or whatever competitor product they pretty much have the basic features of email, calendaring etc...
Migrating from Exchange becomes a nightmare when you try to migrate functionality that depends on very specific features of Exchange like:
OMA, OWA, cached exchange mode, custom MAPI applications, Exchange application connectors, Exchange only plugs-ins like GFI Essentials, query-based distribution lists, custom public folder applications, custom AD/Exchange schema attributes, server side rules, RPC over HTTP and so on.
After a couple of hours of this kind of inventory in a large enterprise it becomes very clear that migration from Exchange will become very complicated and expensive - hence that's why very few organizations attempt it.
No competitor can guarantee 100% compatibility with Exchange dependant software so you're forced into a situation where you have to troubleshoot some custom MAPI code some developer wrote to query calendars for invetory shipments that doesnt' seem to work after the migration. Then you have to answer some user's question about why his Ipaq isn't processing rules properly in Outlook or why he can't change his signature in Outlook Web access anymore or why the address book doesn't contain some custom LDAP attribute.Multiply this a hundred times and your work gets cut out for you.
If you're a mom and pop shop with 50 or so users Exchange migration is a snap but in an enteprise it will take 6-12months to migrate your email and collaboration system completely.
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Exactly... I bougth mac mini but it's secondary computer used mainly for web browsing. It's going to be next to impossible for me to switch - there are just too many Windows only applications. Even the ported applications are not quite the same as in Windows and this has caused issues.
>My experience with Exchange has been that it falls over frequently. That was a long time ago now, and I imagine it's much improved, >but instability was the hallmark of my Exchange experience for some time. The MTBF was probably about 3-5 days. This can only be a result of a poor admin/setup. Even with our 5.5 servers there is only scheduled downtime every couple of months but with our clustered 2003 Exchange setup we have 2-3 minutes scheduled downtime once in a while and that's about it. If I had to deal with half hour outages or delayed emails I'd be hearing from management and switching to another product ASAP. With Exchange you need an admin with 3-5 years hands on experience with a wide array of issues from client troubleshooting to aligning disks in SAN. Architecting the mail infrastructure is critical. Unfortunately there are morons who run the Exchange setup wizard and click around in ADUC a couple times and wonder why the whole thing falls apart in a couple weeks. Just like you wouldn't expect a guy who just read Linux for Dummies to be able to setup sendmail like rock you can't expect the same from someone who hasn't admined Exchange for at least a couple years.
I just hate it when those legacy products like Exchange keep rising in market share (from the current ~60% to a projected ~80% in 5 years) and adding features not available in competitor products (e.g. OMA, OWA).
Migrating from Exchange becomes a nightmare when you try to migrate functionality that depends on very specific features of Exchange like: OMA, OWA, cached exchange mode, custom MAPI applications, Exchange application connectors, Exchange only plugs-ins like GFI Essentials, query-based distribution lists, custom public folder applications, custom AD/Exchange schema attributes, server side rules, RPC over HTTP and so on.
After a couple of hours of this kind of inventory in a large enterprise it becomes very clear that migration from Exchange will become very complicated and expensive - hence that's why very few organizations attempt it.
No competitor can guarantee 100% compatibility with Exchange dependant software so you're forced into a situation where you have to troubleshoot some custom MAPI code some developer wrote to query calendars for invetory shipments that doesnt' seem to work after the migration. Then you have to answer some user's question about why his Ipaq isn't processing rules properly in Outlook or why he can't change his signature in Outlook Web access anymore or why the address book doesn't contain some custom LDAP attribute .Multiply this a hundred times and your work gets cut out for you.
If you're a mom and pop shop with 50 or so users Exchange migration is a snap but in an enteprise it will take 6-12months to migrate your email and collaboration system completely.