Small business wanting to use Exchange 2003...no idea where to start!

I'd really appreciate some advice on this. We're a small real estate
company looking to be able to share contacts, calenders, tasks, etc
between each other. There are only 3 agents in the office, so I've
been told Exchange would be overkill. However I can see no other way
to accomplish what we want while still being able to utilize Outlook.

Currently, we're all running XP Pro, as well as Office 2003, and we're
on a small home office LAN. We're looking into gettin an entry-level
server from Dell, but I'm not real sure what is recommended/required.

I've been researching products, and from what I can tell, Small
Business Server 2003 includes Exchange 2003, as well as 5 CAL's. Is
this correct?

Is Exchange something that someone with no experience in server
software could run and maintain? While I'm quite experienced with
Windows, and computers in general, I've never managed a server or used
Exchange.

Does Microsoft employ consultants that could come and speak to my
company about these issues, and tell us what we need to do to get up
and running with Exchange? That would be a great help!

I'd really appreciate any help or advice you could offer to a small
company looking to get this started. Thanks in advance!

Gregg
Tue Oct 28 10:40:08 CST 2003

Marcus,

For your setup, Small Business Server 2003 would be perfect. It comes with 5
CALs, has Exchange 2003 included, has shared faxing, shared folders, shared
contacts, etc. I don't think you would want to set it up by yourself, but
you could try.

Microsoft does not employ its own consultants, but network consulting
companies abound. I have my own company (in Huntington Beach, CA) and I use
SBS 2003. There are thousands of other companies out there willing to help.
Grab a phone book and start looking in your area.

Another nice feature of SBS 2003 is that you can reach your shared folders
from the web. Also, Exchange has Outlook Web Access (OWA) that allows you to
get your email via a web browser that makes a connection to your Exchange
server.

Gregg Hill


"Marcus Diddle" <marcus@mjpd.com> wrote in message
news:c90bc1e1.0310271217.517921cc@posting.google.com...
> I'd really appreciate some advice on this. We're a small real estate
> company looking to be able to share contacts, calenders, tasks, etc
> between each other. There are only 3 agents in the office, so I've
> been told Exchange would be overkill. However I can see no other way
> to accomplish what we want while still being able to utilize Outlook.
>
> Currently, we're all running XP Pro, as well as Office 2003, and we're
> on a small home office LAN. We're looking into gettin an entry-level
> server from Dell, but I'm not real sure what is recommended/required.
>
> I've been researching products, and from what I can tell, Small
> Business Server 2003 includes Exchange 2003, as well as 5 CAL's. Is
> this correct?
>
> Is Exchange something that someone with no experience in server
> software could run and maintain? While I'm quite experienced with
> Windows, and computers in general, I've never managed a server or used
> Exchange.
>
> Does Microsoft employ consultants that could come and speak to my
> company about these issues, and tell us what we need to do to get up
> and running with Exchange? That would be a great help!
>
> I'd really appreciate any help or advice you could offer to a small
> company looking to get this started. Thanks in advance!

northrock007
Thu Nov 06 16:14:13 CST 2003

Another option is to use a hosted service. We switched a number of our
customers to Solve360 from www.norada.com and never looked back.

Cheers.