Owned MS Exchange vs. Hosted MS Exchange
Costs need to be seen in a broad perspective, taking the “total cost of ownership” (TCO) into account. In addition to initial and ongoing product costs this includes set up costs, costs of maintenance, costs of training and cost of support.
In addition it makes sense to calculate costs for different expected future scenarios. This would include expected number of users and memory usage. Products which look very similar at the face of it cost wise, may lead to markedly different costs and team size as usage grows.
Lastly, costs need to be considered in light of the features offered.
Microsoft Exchange Costs
Total Costs of Ownership (TCO) for Microsoft Exchange can be broadly broken down into three categories
1. Initial Costs:
- Operating System Software
- License & Subscription Costs
- Email client(s)
- Spam and Virus control software and hardware
- Real time back up software and hardware
- Server hardware
- Software/Hardware required for redundancy, system uptime and data integrity
- Load balancing, security, monitoring and connectivity software/hardware
- Labour costs associated with system integration & configuration
2. Product Costs:
Exchange requires an ANNUAL licensing purchase for every:
- End-user
- Server
- Requires ANNUAL maintenance contract purchase.
3. Ongoing Costs:
- Software upgrades
- IT infrastructure, software and hardware maintenance costs
- Operating costs associated with system uptime, data backup and integrity
- User support and training costs
- Hardware upgrades
Microsoft Exchange Comparison Sheet
Please find below an estimate of MS Exchange costs for the first year if you were to host it in house and the cost of using an MS Exchange Hosted solution.
