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Installation and Upgrades / Re: Zentyal server is replacement for MS SBS ?
« on: September 26, 2013, 10:08:03 pm »
Personally i always prefer interacting with company on their forums where possible, and to that end think its the appropriate place to discuss all things zentyal, with the caviat that this board probably isnt (but then there isn't a general chat / offtopic one at present).
At the end of the day they're a private company, and entitled to charge / do whatever they like with their products, and no ammount of self-important whining here will ever change that. On the other hand, its often benificial to be able to gain consensus amongst other users before bombarding the company with ideas / demands. Also, forums have the benefit of being public, which gives the impression that its less likely for a company shrug things off than if they were presented with the same topics individually.
At the end of the day they're a private company, and entitled to charge / do whatever they like with their products, and no ammount of self-important whining here will ever change that. On the other hand, its often benificial to be able to gain consensus amongst other users before bombarding the company with ideas / demands. Also, forums have the benefit of being public, which gives the impression that its less likely for a company shrug things off than if they were presented with the same topics individually.
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Installation and Upgrades / Re: Zentyal server is replacement for MS SBS ?
« on: September 26, 2013, 09:13:10 pm »
it'll be interesting to see whats announced after the conference next month, but it looks like there might still be hope
Edit, the pitfall of rewriting a message 4 or 5 times before posting it is that sometimes it dosn't make any sense by the time you're done... i'll try again
That looks interesting, perhaps there's some hope of an announcement / shift in direction being announced at the conference next month.
Edit, the pitfall of rewriting a message 4 or 5 times before posting it is that sometimes it dosn't make any sense by the time you're done... i'll try again
I have a feeling that openocean made an inspired choice for the leadership of zentyal development.
http://www.zentyal.org/2013/04/zentyal-appoints-julien-kerihuel-as-chief-technology-officer/
http://www.openchange.org/
Have a look
What is needed and I think its more or less happened with 3.2 is a stable platform to get zentyal offerings and 3rd party offerings in a marketplace such as google play or the app store and really let zentyal fly.
Alfresco or Liferay could provide sharepoint but we need someone to supply it.
If Zentyal controlled the market place then like the previous they can create revenue. It would be really easy to provide a certificate authentication service and provide solutions for free, commercial and any other offering you would like to think of.
That looks interesting, perhaps there's some hope of an announcement / shift in direction being announced at the conference next month.
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Installation and Upgrades / Re: Zentyal server is replacement for MS SBS ?
« on: September 26, 2013, 08:56:11 pm »I think you would be better asking about the partner program.
Thanks, I'd not thought of that, i'll shoot them an email
That's an interesting debate indeed.
What's the main goal ? To replace SBS in term of feature or to replace SBS for free or at least at very low cost?
A mix of both i suppose as i effectively have two markets
1. existing clients who're more likely to be irked about sbs features suddenly disappearing in an upgrade
2. new clients getting their first server who won't know any different.
In order of priority the things i'm after are
1. exchange replacement, ideally with activesync ( it does need to do contacts & calendars aswell rather than just imap)
2. central logons (roaming profiles are a nice touch but not the end of the world)
3. group policy alike
4. the usual assortment of file-server / backup toys
5. a sharepoint equivalent would be a nice touch but ... meh who uses sharepoint anyway?
In terms of cost, in an ideal world it'd be free, but business-grade things seldom are. As a more realistic wishlist £1500 per release (or £300 a year) is probably all the money. One thing that i think is worth mentioning, is that my experience has been that a major part of peoples objection to the cloud has been over the shift from perpetual licenses to ongoing subscriptions (almost regardless of the cost, although that's also a factor), so given a choice being able to frontload it would actually be an advantage over microsoft.
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Installation and Upgrades / Re: Zentyal server is replacement for MS SBS ?
« on: September 26, 2013, 08:33:02 pm »
Sorry to bandwagon your thread qsnap, but i thought replying here would probably be less irritating to people than starting another topic on the same theme.
I've made a living persuading local businesses that it was time to invest in "baby's first server" in the guise of microsoft sbs. Obviously the announcement that it's being discontinued has thrown a spanner in the works so i have been looking for alternatives (full fat server+exchange is too expensive, and my attempts to suggest the cloud have all been laughed out of the room). Several people have pointed me towards Zentyal, and from my demo install it certainly seams like it would tick all the required boxes.
The only slight snag is the price. Unless i have misunderstood the information on the website, the community edition only supports 3 outlook connections, making it effectively useless as a sbs replacement (thunderbird etc might be viable at some future point when trying to persuade clients of the merits of ditching Microsoft altogether, but trying to get there in one jump would be suicidal.)
This leaves me looking at the supported small business edition, but i just can't find a way to make the numbers work. On a nominal 10 user network small business edition + the communications addon comes to 900 euros (or roughly £750) per year.
erring on the generous side, and assuming a 5 year life-cycle (in reality most my tightfisted clients only upgrade every 8-10 years), this would make Zentyal's tco £3750, which is massively more than the £850 or so that (non-oem) sbs would cost and is actually more expensive than server 12 standard + exchange.
I know that effectively i'm comparing supported vs unsupported pricing which is unfair, but it appears to be the only option with the community edition being useless (for my purposes) and the communications addon requiring the small business edition.
Rather than coming here just to bitch, i was hoping that i might have got the wrong end of the stick somewhere along the line & that someone would be able to set me straight. I appreciate that Zentyal is a product in its own right rather than just a drop-in replacement for microsoft, but when imagining it as one (as im sure more than a few sbs admins are currently doing) i'm struggling to find a way to justify the proposition.
any thoughts would be much appreciated.
I've made a living persuading local businesses that it was time to invest in "baby's first server" in the guise of microsoft sbs. Obviously the announcement that it's being discontinued has thrown a spanner in the works so i have been looking for alternatives (full fat server+exchange is too expensive, and my attempts to suggest the cloud have all been laughed out of the room). Several people have pointed me towards Zentyal, and from my demo install it certainly seams like it would tick all the required boxes.
The only slight snag is the price. Unless i have misunderstood the information on the website, the community edition only supports 3 outlook connections, making it effectively useless as a sbs replacement (thunderbird etc might be viable at some future point when trying to persuade clients of the merits of ditching Microsoft altogether, but trying to get there in one jump would be suicidal.)
This leaves me looking at the supported small business edition, but i just can't find a way to make the numbers work. On a nominal 10 user network small business edition + the communications addon comes to 900 euros (or roughly £750) per year.
erring on the generous side, and assuming a 5 year life-cycle (in reality most my tightfisted clients only upgrade every 8-10 years), this would make Zentyal's tco £3750, which is massively more than the £850 or so that (non-oem) sbs would cost and is actually more expensive than server 12 standard + exchange.
I know that effectively i'm comparing supported vs unsupported pricing which is unfair, but it appears to be the only option with the community edition being useless (for my purposes) and the communications addon requiring the small business edition.
Rather than coming here just to bitch, i was hoping that i might have got the wrong end of the stick somewhere along the line & that someone would be able to set me straight. I appreciate that Zentyal is a product in its own right rather than just a drop-in replacement for microsoft, but when imagining it as one (as im sure more than a few sbs admins are currently doing) i'm struggling to find a way to justify the proposition.
any thoughts would be much appreciated.
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