PostPath goes after Microsoft Exchange
Blogged Live from DEMOfall by Alex Iskold
Three years in making, the Linux Mail server from PostPath debuted at DEMOfall this morning. What took them so long? Well, their sever is a 100% compatible replacement for Microsoft Exchange running on Linux. As far as Outlook is concerned, it is talking to Microsoft Exchange Server - all of the protocols and information are exactly the same. The difference is in resilience, scalability and cost.
Since this is a Linux based solution, the pain of backup - which is notorious problem for Exchange administrators - is simply gone. PostPath stores everything in the form of flat files, so any Linux backup can work. One of the PostPath executives mentioned to me that the total cost of installation of PostPath is going to be about 1/3 of the cost of an Exchange installation. Given the cost savings, resilience and ease of use, I think this one could give Exchange run for the money.
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Alex,
The beauty of blogging is getting it out there fast. The drawback is lack of time to do the verification of what you've been told.
I've been looking for a Microsoft Exchance replacement and was very very interested in your news, so I looked up PostPath, especially the bit about 1/3 the price.
Although I'm IT Director at an educational institution, I couldn't find anything about such pricing. So I went with their standard pricing.
We're used to paying about $300 a server and $15 a seat for Exchange, and the $24,300 they wanted for a server license and 450 seats made me fall out of my seat. In addition, Standard Annual support was going to be another $4,000, but we will leave that out of the picture for now.
Then, I went to the Exchange site to check their story out. At $699 (for Exchange Server 2003) plus $67 a seat, the Microsoft grand total (sans support) came out to $31,900.
So, it seems that (sans support) Post Path is charging a bit over 2/3 the price of Exchange, and this does not include the Outlook licenses, if needed. At 1/3 the price, I might have even jumped without the educational discounts, but not at 2/3rds+.
Regards,
an old (db)geezer
Steve,
I am dissapointed to learn that the numbers are different. I was told this by one of the company senior people during the DEMO conference. They used the 1/3 of the price in the context of TOC (Total cost of ownership).
I hope that they will see the post and will follow up.
Alex