Oliver Rist and I bumped into each other years ago working for different magazines. I thought he was pretty smart then, but I think he’s gotten cleverer over the years. Now he agrees with me that small and medium businesses can avoid Microsoft Exchange and not only live to tell about it, but thrive.
Check out Oliver’s comments saying SMBs Should Consider Axing Exchange. I agree. He references a company called Gordano, and I wrote about Kerio’s Exchange replacement (improvement for many) back in New E-mail Server Option. Since Oliver focuses on enterprise topics, bashing Exchange and offering alternatives to small and medium businesses must be important to him.
Speaking of enterprise customers and companies, HP believes they have a new plan to woo small and medium businesses with thin client computers. In fact, HP Seeks Big Growth with Thin Clients. But if that’s true, why has HP priced the thin client at $699? Companies buy complete computers for less than that, including many models from HP. Of course, you don’t have to buy applications for thin clients, but you have to buy those applications in server versions, and pay for the server to host them. Perhaps HP will call and tell me what they’re thinking, because I don’t get. Maybe it’s me, but I bet it’s HP.
