Hosted vs In-house Exchange.


Let’s compare the costs of an in-house Exchange solution for a 10-person company with the costs of a hosted Exchange solution. We assume the company will keep the solution for five years before considering an upgrade. We also assume the company has 3 users who require mobile connectivity, 2 BlackBerry devices and 1 Windows Mobile.


  Upfront costs In-house Hosted
  X64 bit servers R 75,000 Included
  MS Windows server license R 30,000 Included
  Exchange server license R 21,000 Included
  Windows server CAL's R 34,000 Included
  Exchange server CAL's R 60,000 Included
  Outlook / Entourage licenses R 13,000 Included
  BlackBerry Enterprise Server R 100,000 Included
  Setup fees R 160,000 R 2,500
  Total R 493,000 R 2,500
  Ongoing monthly costs In-house Hosted
  Antivirus R 5,000 Included
  Administration R 20,000 Included
  Monthly fee - R 1,500
  Total R 25,000 R 1,500
       
       

This chart clearly demonstrates the upfront and ongoing cost advantages of a hosted Exchange solution, another economic point to consider is that most in-house software purchases are based on hopeful predictions of future needs.
In other words, a company spends more now to be able to accommodate growth down the road. On top of that there is the upgrade factor, which means having to buy, test and deploy new versions along the way.