If you are acquainted with the profits of Microsoft Exchange Server, and you are considering deploying this robust messaging and collaboration platform, you should become versed in your installation options. They include: self hosted; shared hosted; privately hosted.

Many large companies and organizations have made the investment in hosting their own Microsoft Exchange Server environments. What they have revealed is that the costs connected with purchasing equipment and licensing, installing the messaging system, and maintaining it over the years can be prohibitively costly. That doesn’t mean that self-hosting is always a bad choice: if you have a large, well-trained IT staff and your users are highly centralized, you may find that self-hosting is suitable for you.

Why is Self-Hosted Exchange so Expensive? A correctly configured Microsoft Exchange environment needs on two dedicated Active Directory Domain Controllers and at least one dedicated Exchange Server. All three servers must be licensed for Microsoft Windows Server 2003, and the mail server must be licensed for Microsoft Exchange. In addition, you must license each user for both Windows Server and Exchange Server. So before you even consider hardware and implementation, a 20 user system costs between $4000 & $5000 in licensing alone. Even if you resolve to get the least expensive hardware available, it is hard to conceive you could get the entire system installed for less than $6000.

The system described above is just the basic building blocks of your messaging system. There are several important elements missing from the configuration, including: data backup; anti-virus / anti-spam; Internet connectivity; ongoing support and maintenance.

A more reasonable price for installing this state-of-the-art messaging and collaboration system is approximately $10,000.

Let’s try to understand, why would any organization install Exchange Server? Large companies get the gain of economies of scale. The rising cost of adding a single user to this environment is around $100. This means that systems with hundreds of email accounts can spread the equipment and licensing costs among a larger pool of users. Also, they tend to have IT staffs equipped to handle the day-to-day management of a convoluted email system.

What is Shared Hosted Exchange

A number of companies have sprung up on the web that have created large Microsoft Exchange Server infrastructures suited to supporting thousands of users. They offer a simple alternative for single users or small companies to host Exchange email. They generally offer their customers a flat fee per user. Their plans contain a specific amount of storage for each user account, and they charge a nominal fee per user per month.

Need more information about exchange hosted server? There are all answers on the questions about exchange hosted server in our exchange hosted server site.