For many companies, 2013 is likely to be a year of system upgrades, or at least investigating the new versions of software as they become available. In a Microsoft-centric world, businesses have big decisions around nearly every major IT component, from OSs with the releases of Windows 8 and Windows Server 2012, to office productivity with Office 2013 and SharePoint 2013, to administration with System Center 2012.
Unless your Microsoft Exchange Server implementation is seriously ailing, moving to Exchange Server 2013 might be a low priority this year. Even if your business does need a messaging system upgrade, either to get off older, no-longer-supported software or to take advantage of new features, installing the new Exchange still might not be in the budget. Of course, you can consider Microsoft Office 365 if you want to keep it all in the Microsoft family and you're willing and able to take advantage of cloud services.
However, for companies that want to investigate options other than what Microsoft offers, it's always good to remember that other vendors do offer messaging servers that might just satisfy your needs. IceWarp has been in the market for over ten years. The company's latest release, IceWarp Server 10.4.4, is compatible with Windows Server 2012 and Windows 8, and can be connected to Microsoft Outlook or can be used with IceWarp Desktop Client and IceWarp WebClient.
IceWarp Server provides all the expected business needs in a mail server, syncing email, calendar, contacts, tasks, and it features built-in anti-spam and antivirus protection. Through add-ons, it can be configured to provide an integrated unified messaging environment, including IM, text messaging, and mobile device support. The IceWarp ecosystem is scalable to large enterprises -- in fact, the IceWarp Server provides the backend for email service providers -- but most customers come in the mid range, from 500 to 5,000 seats.
As far as why new customer are choosing IceWarp Server and where they're coming from, company president and co-founder Ladislav Goc said, "They're moving from Exchange because of the cost and because of the complexity of the maintenance. And second, they're actually moving from the different kinds of open source programs, free programs, or the smaller programs." IceWarp offers an all-in-one communications infrastructure, which can be deployed and maintained for less than Microsoft Exchange, including the possibility of deploying on Linux servers, which should make this a good alternative to investigate for your messaging needs.
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