E-Mail Servers?

[FragglePete]

What do you use?

We're using MDaemon here which does seem very robust, quite simple but does work well. Staff and Students access e-mail via the Web based World Client where as Admin staff have Outlook installed and download e-mail via POP3 from it. (Not ideal as e-mails are no longer stored on the server).

I'm looking to replace the e-mail server next year, and would really like to go Exchange but I saw the pricing for the External Connector Licence on Schools Agreement and thought.... "Stuff that!" Real shame.

So, may just get a shiny new Server and update MDaemon to latest version with the Outlook connector for Admin Staff but was wondering what else is out there and people are using!

Thanks in advance

Pete

[Sylv3r]

Zimbra for the students and FirstClass for staff.

You will find a lot of "Pro" zimbra schools on here.

[srochford]

I'm looking to replace the e-mail server next year, and would really like to go Exchange but I saw the pricing for the External Connector Licence on Schools Agreement and thought.... "Stuff that!" Real shame.

not sure who you want to provide email for, but you would only need the external connector if (eg) you wanted to set up email for your parents or other outsiders. It's not needed for external access by your own users.

[webman]

We use Zimbra for both staff and students. Totally free to install, use, and for any user to access internally and externally.

[Domino]

I thought the external connector licence was only for if you're gonna 'process' the emails through another system.

But I may be wrong?

[User3204]

We use MDaemon (currently ver 10.0.1), we pay for the maintenance which means we get the upgrades free. We use it for all staff and students, which puts us well over the "ultimate" version or whatever it is they call it.

We have a few users on the Outlook Plugin (which costs extra), so that they can use Outlook, but only from within the school. This uses IMAP, so the messages are left on the server, but makes everything appear as Exchange to Outlook.
Other users just use the WorldClient web client, and a lot of the staff use the Comagent software that auto-logs them on, and allows them to send IM messages to eachother.

There's a 20% discount to education.
The annual maintenance is 20% of the cost you pay (so 20% of 80% of the quoted price).

The only problem I find it the SLT have massive amounts of email messages that they don't read or delete, and I'm averse to giving them no quota.

[FragglePete]

not sure who you want to provide email for, but you would only need the external connector if (eg) you wanted to set up email for your parents or other outsiders. It's not needed for external access by your own users.

Is that true? Yes, only want e-mail access for students & staff externally. Need to look at it more closely then.

Ahh... Found this on Microsoft's Website:

If you would like to allow your business partners or customers to access your network, you have two licensing options

An external user is a person who is not an employee, or similar personnel of the company or its affiliates, and is not someone to whom you provide hosted services using the server software

Cheers

Pete

[FragglePete]

We use MDaemon (currently ver 10.0.1), we pay for the maintenance which means we get the upgrades free. We use it for all staff and students, which puts us well over the "ultimate" version or whatever it is they call it.

We have a few users on the Outlook Plugin (which costs extra), so that they can use Outlook, but only from within the school. This uses IMAP, so the messages are left on the server, but makes everything appear as Exchange to Outlook.
Other users just use the WorldClient web client, and a lot of the staff use the Comagent software that auto-logs them on, and allows them to send IM messages to eachother.

There's a 20% discount to education.
The annual maintenance is 20% of the cost you pay (so 20% of 80% of the quoted price).

The only problem I find it the SLT have massive amounts of email messages that they don't read or delete, and I'm averse to giving them no quota.

Exactly how we are and hoping to do in the future.

Been using it since Jan, and just really can't find anything wrong with MDaemon, just seems to work with no issues. Interesting how the developers recommend its use on Windows XP Pro rather than Server 2003!!

I guess if it's not broken, don't fix it, just maybe upgrade it.

Pete

[duncane]

Is that true? Yes, only want e-mail access for students & staff externally. Need to look at it more closely then.

Ahh... Found this on Microsoft's Website:

It's very confusing isn't it? My last boss set up Exchange (about 9-months ago... ah, I miss him... SNIFF... he went to a better place) - when he looked into it we were told that we'd have to buy extra licenses if the students wanted to use email from home, but not if they accessed them from within school. This didn't apply to staff (who count as employees).

I suppose we couldn't get round the problem by offering our own web client, hosted within our network, that communicated with Exchange via IMAP?

P.S. When I said my boss went to a better place, I meant a different school with more stuff to play with, not that he died!

[Ric_]

For external access to Exchange you will need 'per user' Exchange CALs plus 'per user' Windows CALs (you are accessing a Windows box after all!). This soon gets VERY pricey.

For this reason I chose to switch to Zimbra - the open source version - as it contained everything we needed without the huge price tag (it also runs on lower spec hardware so I could offset a server replacement).

It works great... the only initial complaint was from the bursars who, in fairness, were the only people to use Exchange anywhere nearly properly. Their complaint? The calendar reminders didn't make a noise! - a later release fixed this though so everyone is happy

My estimated saving was approx. £5000!