Gary Smith wrote:
Let them have as much Windows stuff as they want. Just plead the case to supplement.
I'll have to repeat, for the original poster this isn't a technology vs technology argument. If it was, his coworkers would be listing specific things Exchange does that FreeBSD/SA does not do. This is a political battle. He is essentially in the position of a mechanic that someone brings their car to for repair, then sits there telling the mechanic what tools he should be using to repair their car. If the car gets repaired the owner claims that they knew how to repair the car better than the mechanic and the mechanic was an idiot. If the car repair fails the owner claims the mechanic is incompetent and an idiot. Either way, once your boss starts micromanaging, your going to be screwed whether you do a good job or not. He's tried "rescuing" the situation for 8 years, now your giving advice to help him "rescue" the situation more. If he "helps" them by keeping the BSD server in reserve, and they fall flat on their face and he rescues them, then it just is teaching them what to fix on their Exchange setup. They will try it again - perhaps falling flat again - and this will continue over and over with them putting more powerful hardware and more expensive add-on software on their exchange box until eventually they will figure it out, make him get rid of the BSD box - then they won't fall flat anymore. Then they will claim how much better Exchange works, completely ignoring the fact that he helped them troubleshoot their exchange setup. There is absolutely no fix for these types other than to let them fail and not help them back up - just let them be fired for incompetence. Trust me - even if that happened to these coworkers they will just go to the next employer that's a Windows only shop and will never once believe that the Windows solution is worse. It's just like the people who believe in Apple. They will go spend $1K on an iMac and accessories and get -exactly- the same thing that I can build with FreeBSD and a whitebox clone for a quarter of the cost - but will never believe that they overpaid for what they have. Ted
