Alternative to Exchange

By Stephanie Jordan
in

For small to mid-sized businesses (SMB) that are interested in an alternative to Microsoft Exchange there are a number of options available. A recently named top scorer in a Network World Clear Choice Test is Kerio Technologies. “Our focus is the SMB space,” says Dusan Vitek, vice president of worldwide marketing for Kerio Technologies, Inc. “Kerio MailServer was developed for the needs of the SMB customer. We designed the product so that it could be both an on-premise and hosted offering. Some of our customers specialize in the hosting of Kerio MailServer, but most of our customers use our on-premise solution.”

Organizations come to Kerio for various reasons. One of the attractions is multi-platform interoperability. “What sets us apart from Exchange and other competitors is the fact that we provide options in terms of the operating systems that can run Kerio MailServer,” explains Vitek. “That has been a big driver for us. We knew early on that we wanted to give people different operating systems, so the product was launched for Windows, Linux, and a little later for Mac OS X and especially lately, virtualization. We partnered with VMware and launched Kerio MailServer Virtual Appliance for VMware, and that really took off. More recently we made a similar announcement with Parallels. What is great about Parallels is they have a server version of virtualization for Mac OS X.” Vitek goes on to say that Kerio labors to make sure its product works with different clients across different operating systems and different environments. “That is one of the reasons why we are popular with customers that have heterogeneous IT infrastructures where PC users intermingle with Mac users and may be a few Linux users,” he notes. “Just the fact that they can all schedule a meeting together using just about any device, or from any client they like to use, is a big thing.”

Kerio customers, like Ross Phelps, a consulting engineer with IrisInk, agree: “The nice thing about Kerio MailServer is that with all the protocols it can speak, it can handle email, calendaring, and resource scheduling for your whole company, no matter what platform or device an employee needs or wants to use.” While Kerio customers come from different mail backgrounds, Vitek states that the one Kerio sees most often is versions of Exchange. To assist with the migration, last year Kerio developed its Kerio Exchange Migration Tool. “It lets people move the data from their old Exchange environment to the Kerio MailServer, explains Vitek. “Our data migration takes into account, not only email but also contact and calendar. This is important to customers. They have no interest in losing years of contact data.”

Cost is also a factor for organizations seeking alternatives to Exchange. For Martin Mitev, IT Manager at shootdigital, a premier digital imaging studio located in downtown Manhattan, cost was a key factor. “When I realized the savings we would have with Kerio, the decision to move off of Exchange was a no-brainer,” states Mitev. “Our cost per user with Exchange was about $142 (USD). Now with the Kerio MailServer, our cost per user has dropped dramatically to $28 (USD) per user. Not only is the licensing cost significantly lower with Kerio for the same number of users, but also we no longer require additional staff to maintain the email system.”

Published July 2, 2009