Wednesday, June 04, 2008

Small Business Alternatives

So, I mentioned PostPath the other day - a drop-in replacement for Exchange. A comment was made that it is a drop-in replacement for Exchange 5.5 (ie, an obsoleted (by 2000, 2003 and now 2007) Exchange version) and I've not yet been able to confirm this, but I've asked for more information and will post a comment in reply (at least) or another whole blog post - whichever feels the most appropriate when I receive the information.

Anyway, there seems to be some decent competition to Microsoft's products these days, if you're running a small business.

Zimbra
Nitix/Lotus Foundations
PostPath
Evolution
OpenOffice.org 2.0.4
OpenOffice.org Novell Edition 2.0.4
Ubuntu Server 8.04
Ubuntu Desktop 8.04
The following have been added post original blog entry...
OpenSUSE
Kerio MailServer

Now, I'm happy to add to this list if anyone wants to contribute via the comments. We are, after all, here for our clients, to support our clients, and to build their businesses, thereby building our own businesses. If a Microsoft product is appropriate, then we should install that. The same goes with the great many other products out there.

Regards,

The Outspoken Wookie

3 comments:

sproket90 said...

you might also include Kerio MailServer.

www.kerio.com

Anonymous said...

Sharp Technology are a leading 'Small Business Server Appliance' vendor in the UK. There appliances provide far more functionality compared to Microsoft Small Business Server and are available at a far lower price point. See http://www.sharptechnology.co.uk

Hilton Travis said...

G'day Anonymous,

Thanks for promoting your company. :)

This looks like pretty much like a Nitix box or SME Server box that will do some of what's needed, but not all of it. There's extremely limited information on the site about this product - so it also looks like these guys (oops, you) don't want to tell us much about what's in it.

Add to that that this is a UK product that's supported in the UK only, not around the world, and that makes it less appealing.