RE: [IMail Forum] IMail Replacement compilation

[Ted Galerneau]

Wow, thanks for the list! I have invested several hours today in this researching and still haven’t looked at some of the links you’ve provided. However I did get off on a pleasant and possible more profitable tangent while looking at SmarterMail and seeing that it works with some very affordable Windows based remote control panels like Helm and Hosting Controller which can also support many of the other email servers I am looking at, including IMail (yah right)! For less than the investment that Ipswitch expects from us for ICS we could easily setup a whole new email server and a new additional web server complete with a control panel which requires way less maintenance and could actually boost profits way more than ICS unlimited users would, which many of us already need as it is unless your user base is less than 250.   Email software /w unlimited accounts, 30 days of free support & free upgrades for a year starting at $499.00 and $50 support calls after the initial 30 days of free support are up. Control Panel, unlimited domains with 1 year support and upgrades = $698.00. Maybe another $1200 or so for one additional server with OS, and converting the newly retired Imail server and OS into a new web machine for the control panel. The total investment would be about $2397.00, which is much less than the least expensive unlimited ICS offerings from Ipswitch.   Or we could all go for one of the even more expensive email servers with unlimited regular accounts that would also include some Outlook workgroup accounts that we could update incrementally as needed and still save money from what Ipswitch wants by the New Year. For this add another $1400 to the equation above. Either way other than staying with Ipswitch we could easily host many new domains with lots of new email accounts and still offer ICS if a client wants it enough to pay the incremental cost themselves and produce a full return for our investment sooner while saving money in the mean time. Chances are we would probably recover the smaller expenses outlined above much faster than we could by going with ICS and maybe even needing to purchase yet another full version of ICS later on because something new would break what we have and that is not covered with an SA unless of course we want to just throw good hard earned money away every year. The investment noted above would also help to reduce operating overhead by making use of the automated control panel for clients to make automated orders and setup their own stuff and maintain their own accounts and billing.   Or option 2, we that have more than 250 email clients could just spend a minimum of $3995 for the new Ipswitch ICS bundle, assuming we buy it now and sacrifice a better Xmas for our children or grandchildren or wait a while longer and pay yet another grand or more for it. Hmmmmm, I wonder how much new revenue we could generate by trying to force the newly incurred costs of the ICS bundle on our own existing clients some of which are already shopping for less expensive hosting options and get them to pay more? I just don’t have the heart to treat our clients like that while the newer and cheaper web hosting companies are offering more for less than we can provide with what we already have with less or no phone support like what we offer. How can they charge so little and still make any profit while bending over backwards or whichever way for the bigger companies that we must all purchase our tools from that want take more and more money from us each year? Or are those companies just bootlegging the software they use? Perhaps I am just too honest to be in this business anymore.   Lastly, out of our needed unlimited licenses for email (since we have more than a 250 user base) I seriously doubt that I could talk 50 to 100 of our existing clients into forking over another $1 each a month for ICS features. Doing the math that is a max of $1200 per year in additional revenue if I’m really lucky. This means we would still need to pay out another additional $2795 for what we don’t have the market for but have grown to like over the years in spite of some of the hurdles we’ve had. Trying calling Imail support when there is a global problem and something breaks Imail all over! You are right Ipswitch, our $495 a year don’t really cover the support J What are you people thinking?   I apologize for the rave, but I also hope I sound as bummed out as much as I really am by this outrageous thing that Ipswitch is putting off on us all! I’ve never wanted to wish anyone anything bad before because I believe in Karma. I am going to try and hold on to my ethics and beliefs because my guess is Ipswitch will be getting a large dose of what goes around comes around. Probably even if they totally back peddle on this one, much harm is done already and many long time trusts are already broken. I will try really to stop ranting from this point on, but I just don’t know how else to really get their attention and I am pretty frustrated right now.   From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Thursday, October 28, 2004 8:51 PM To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: [IMail Forum] IMail Replacement compilation   We have been using IMail since 1997 (it's crashing our 1st server almost put us out of business in 1997, that server is still running today). We currently have 2 mail servers that we run and several co-located customers who are also running IMail. We just built a new server to upgrade one of our IMail servers, at which time we would have renewed our service agreement with the hope to continue to use their product for another 7 years. All I can say to IMail's developers and support people is "thank you for the many years of use out of a great product." Unfortunately since Ipswitch is no longer interested in meeting our needs by bloating a product beyond our needs we have decided to move on. We don't need all the bells and whistles, we just need a solid mail server that will handles 1000's of accounts on many domains and not break the bank. As such I have taken the time to read all the mail posted in the last few days and compile a list of commercial different solutions along with their cost to meet our needs. In all cases I looked for Unlimited Domains & Unlimited Users. If UNK is shown it means that the price was not clearly available or it was unclear. I have indicated which products clearly listed a migration tool for IMail. I have not distinguished which products have Group Ware (we don't care or need it) or have anti-spam/anti-virus capabilities (we are covered here - thanks to Len and IMGate) as most of them do now days. If I have missed anyone or gotten the pricing wrong, I apologize.  I hope to put together a similar list of Open Source Software solutions that also meet our requirement of unlimited users with unlimited domains. Any suggestions here would be appreciated. P.S. I hope I got the capitalization of IMail and Ipswitch correct. Deerfield:      http://www.deerfield.com/products/visnetic-mailserver/   $1,950.00 FTGate  http://www.ftgate.com/showpage.asp?id=57                        �600 Kerio           http://www.kerio.com/kms_active_dir.html                        UNK MailEnable:     http://www.mailenable.com                                       $220 MailMax 5.5:    http://www.smartmax.com/mailmax.aspx                    $1499 MDeamon http://www.altn.com/                                            $1,980.00 Merak:          http://merakmailserver.com/Products/Mail_Server_Migration_Tool/  $Depends on options Has migration tool. ModusMail:      http://www.vircom.com/Products/Modus/ModusMail/                 UNK SLMail Pro      http://www.slmail.com/default.asp                               $1,450 SmarterMail:    http://www.smartertools.com/Default.aspx                $495.00                 Discount pricing: http://www.plateaultd.com/xcart/customer/home.php?cat=254             $199.00 Has migration tool. Surge Mail:     http://netwinsite.com/surgemail/                                $770 WinMail http://www.magicwinmail.net/technic.asp                 $1299 WorkGroupMail    http://www.workgroupmail.com/contactus.asp             $1495 Additional Products: http://www.emailman.com/win/servers.html I am sure I have missed some as I only have 25 hours in a day to address potential areas of growth thrown my way. Hope this helps others at least in part of their search for a replacement to IMail.