Jim,
I think you are a little confused about Microsoft's pricing. That's not a surprise, they intend it to be confusing.
Microsoft currently sells Back Office for a list price of $2,499, or $2,039 for a competitive upgrade. This does NOT include any client access licenses. To add 25 client access licenses would cost $5,479 list. So the real cost to the customer is much higher then the figure you indicated.
Let's compare a competitive upgrade for 10 users.
For Small Business Server (assuming same price as Back Office since it is practically the same product, just in a different box):
Base product $2,039
10 Client Access Licenses $2,258
Hardware upgrade? Small Business Server minimum recommended hardware is Pentium 166, 64 MB RAM, 2 GB disk space for OS only.
To qualify for the upgrade pricing? Who knows (we are talking vaporware here). Assume you have to own some version of NetWare, NT, LAN Manager, LAN Server, or LANtastic with the same number of client licenses.
Total cost (excluding hardware): $4,297
For IntranetWare for Small Business:
10 User Competitive upgrade $795 (I charged a customer $695 last week)
To qualify for the upgrade price: own at least one license for the above listed products, or one copy of Windows for Workgroups, Win 95, Win NT Workstation, Personal NetWare or NetWare Lite, Novell DOS 7, or a few others. Basically, anyone with a computer qualifies.
To even up the capabilities of the package, throw in GroupWise 5.2 10 user: list price $1,421 (I charged a customer $1255 last week)
Oh hell, make it even a more complete package; add Cheyenne's Server Suite: list price $995 (I charged a customer $735 last week).
Hardware upgrade? The package will run very well on a 486-66 with 32 MB of RAM, and 500 MB disk space for the OS and applications.
Total cost (excluding hardware) $3,211 (I've sold it for $2,885).
Feature comparison:
With Small Business Server, you get file and print services, a web server, a proxy cache server, email and scheduling, and an SQL database server.
With IntranetWare for Small Business and the other products listed, you get file and print services, a web server, better email and scheduling (including full function web access), a non-SQL database server, server-based modem-sharing software for dialing out or dialing in, routing software suitable for connecting to the Internet (with advanced routing protocols, packet level filtering, etc.), a fax server for inbound and outbound faxing, server based backup software, and server-based anti-virus protection.
Conclusion: IntranetWare for Small Business with GroupWise and ServerSuite offers more features at a substantially lower cost. |
