My office is switching to an all Mac office. Our Mac IT guy says that Kerio will do all we need and more. A second opinion IT guy tells us that some of our clients could have computability issues. I am leaning towards the Kerio MailServer and haven’t seen any complaints about it other than the curmudgeons who would complain about any change.
Anyone have any Kerio MailServer experience that could help a brother out?
What is the straight dope?
Sorry I don’t have any specific info on Kerio software but I just wanted to point out that “all we need and more” can be misleading if you only compare features of Kerio in a vacuum against MS Exchange in a vacuum.
In other words, you may need to look at the whole ecosystem around Kerio and compare it with the ecosystem around MS Exchange.
Examples of ecosystem thinking:
Suppose you’re looking at sophisticated backup+recovery software that can save mail files while they’re still open or save just save the delta difference of mailboxes for faster performance (or restore individual mailboxes for less disruption.) Sophisticated software like that might have plugins only for MS Exchange and not Kerio.
Or you’re looking at antivirus/antispam filters and the plugins are only compatible with MS Exchange.
Or you’re office is exploring elaborate workflow solutions and the accounting software has invoice fax capability but that feature can only integrate with MS Exchange.
I don’t know how big or complex your office is so the examples above may not apply to you.
Thank you for your help. I am not an IT person obviously.
Our office is now five people, we hope to keep it small but it could grow to 10 or 12 over the next couple of years.
We hope to go as paperless as we can and be able to scan in documents to our server. We want to be able to access these files remotely. From what I understand, we can do all of this using Kerio.
Things that you have brought to my attention that I am clueless about but will check into are
As far as invoice and billing goes, we are using quickbooks for Mac and a Mac software program called Daylite to keep track of time and clients.
I am leaning towards Kerio but am being open minded about it. I have a couple of weeks to research it in depth, the SDMB is my first resource.
Keep in mind that I only brought up 3 examples. In reality, there are dozens of “ecosystem” scenarios that may be relevant to you.
If your office will max out at 10 people (low mail volume), then you probably don’t need sophisticated (specialized) backup/recovery software.
There’s nothing wrong with Kerio if you have through the potential integration scenarios (ecosystem thinking) and determined they don’t apply to you.
Since your office is so small, another idea to throw out there is to avoid an in-house mail server altogether. Just use an outside provider that gives you POP mailbox access. The advantage is that they take care of backups, antivirus, antispam, hardware redundancy, software upgrades, etc, etc. The disadvantage is flexibility: no fancy integration scenarios like workflow faxing.
You will notice that anyone stating plugins for your enterprise mail server should be beaten with a stick. You need to one figure out a few key details.
Do you have lots of money to piss away?
Do you only have people like this guy who wants plugins.
If you answered yes buy exchange. You are in a dead end job and microsoft needs all your money.
If you answered no. Get kero.
Simple No magic.
Email servers are again for email. Microsoft tends to play on ignorant people, get educated and see how you can run your own FREE email server that is out preform exchange without money, But that takes an education and well lots want it they just cannot get it.
Sendmail. postfix.
for the win.
All else use kero then for the useless use Exchange.
A zombie thread raised by a guy called necron?
Whoa.
That configuration I’d like to see working (hint: sendmail and postfix are** both** SMTP servers - you would choose one or the other, and also need an IMAP/POP3 server for email access).
I’m pretty savvy, and have run my own mail server/internet gateway for years, but when it comes to setting up a new mail server in a VPS while my server is offline, Dovecot was easy (for IMAP) but Postfix is not (and sendmail is even harder). I haven’t yet got secure mail submission working correctly - something wrong with the SSL certs. And forget about VDomains so my Googlemail forwarding works correctly. Now, I do have some time to work on this now, but I moved everything back to GMail, reconfigured phones/laptops/tablets and Gmail is much better. I can back everything up using imapsync to the VPS, but I may have to drop Postfix for qsmtpd, as I know that can do what I want. And I don’t have SpamAssassin plumbed in either.
I’m not going to address the OP - this thread is to old, but only note that the cost of Kerio is pretty high for 10 users, compared with MS Small Business Server with Exchange.
Moderator Action
Welcome to the Straight Dope Message Board, necronn99. Please note that the thread you are replying to is over four years old. We tend to refer to old threads like this that have been revived as zombies, and they usually result in several zombie jokes as replies. We do allow zombies here, but we do ask that you only raise old threads if you have something new or relevant to contribute to them. Also, please note that since the thread is so old, many of the original thread participants may not be around any longer to see or respond to your post. Four years is a lot of time for software to change as well. Many of the original replies may be outdated or incorrect due to changes in software and pricing.
Due to the age and nature of this thread, I think it is best to just close this thread and put the poor zombie back into its grave. Anyone wishing to discuss this topic as it relates to current software and computer platforms may start a new thread in the appropriate forum.
Thread closed.