We get asked questions about Hosted Exchange versus In-House Exchange so I thought I could provide some information here for you all to read. Most of the clients we talk to seem to like the Hosted Exchange model due to it being cheaper than an in-house exchange. But sometimes it is not always that simple and I believe there are two factors that determine if a Hosted Exchange solution is right for you.
- How many employees in your business there are?
- What are your upfront and long term budgets?
Let's take two companies, our calculators and do some math.
Company X needs 3 mailbox accounts and Company Y needs 30 mailbox
accounts. All employees in both companies have iPhones and require
3 GB mailboxes.
Company X
Hosted: The New Zealand industry standard per
mailbox is generally around $20 at the writing of this article. So
our monthly total for 3 mailbox accounts with iPhone support is $60
which totals up to an annual amount of $720
In-House: Considering the cost, it would silly
for a business to go in-house with only 3 users. You would be
better to stick with Hosted Exchange.
Company Y
Hosted: 30 mailbox accounts for $600 per month
with iPhone support which totals to an annual amount of $7200
In-House: You require a fairly high spec server
if you have a 30 users business. At the time of writing this
article the approximate cost would be around 20k for the server,
software, licenses, backup device and backup tapes. There would be
a minimum of 20hrs labour at $120 to configure the server software
and clients. It is important to consider maintenance for Exchange.
Generally an IT solutions provider should be able to maintain an
SBS for around $500 a month. So we have a one off cost for the
hardware and software of 20k plus minimum labour cost of $2400
which totals $22400, plus an ongoing monthly maintenance cost of
$500. Totalling this up, the first year would cost you around
$28400 then 6k each year after for maintenance. Now also remember
that a server has a lifespan of 3-4 years so once it reaches that
age you start all over again. There is also the Exchange and
Outlook lifecycle where every 3-4 years a new version is out.
Migrating to these new versions is no easy task and can take hours
and hours.
So as you can see, an in-house Exchange solution can be effective
and give you granular functionality that you may not have in an
hosted exchange environment but if you don't have the upfront
budget, it can be quite expensive. A hosted exchange solution
doesn't have the upfront costs and has a fixed monthly cost but you
may not have the same control that you have if it is in-house. But
shouldn't you be focussing on what you do best, running your
business, and leave your I.T to the professionals?
If you would like to more about hosted exchange please contact
MHA