>> My director seems interested in outsourcing our e-mail system, judging >> by the number of articles on outsourcing that he sends to me. Google >> and Zimbra with a commercial contractor are the latest two. Replacing >> a perfectly functioning e-mail system seems ludicrous to me, as does >> subjecting our users to a migration for no reason. I assume at least >> that he wants vendors to quote on a replacement system. Perhaps once >> he sees the cost, he will change his mind. I suppose it depends on >> whether the quote includes the real cost. Does anyone here have >> experience in this area? I know that CMU and other universities want >> to maintain their own e-mail systems. What's the justification in >> these cases? > > I don't know about costs. I do know that you could not outsource our email > service without simplifying it a lot. For example, would your contractors > be able to use your campus authentication mechanism? Would they be able to > use your existing user support processes? Would you be able to introduce > new services, or service enhancements? Would your user's privacy be > protected? In my experience outsourcing looks great on paper but never works out as expected. For one thing you must be _very_ careful about hidden costs and SLAs. You need to think of _everything_ you need now and in the future and have it specified in the contract at fixed prices. I have never seen a project outsourced that didn't end up costing significantly more than was originally assumed. "Oh, you want shared folders, too? You didn't specify that as a requirement when we built this system..." $$$$ ka-ching! $$$$ (Very!) generally speaking doing something in-house is cheaper than outsourcing. Outsourcing is good if you have more money than time/energy/resources and/or want someone to blame when there's trouble. I would never consider outsourcing as a cost-saving measure, except in very specific situations (DNS and web hosting are good examples, provided your needs are relatively simple) I would be quite surprised if you can find a provider that will offer you a 30000+ user mail system for less than it costs to hire one decent admin. Even in the initial calculation! I would consider outsourcing in some scenarios, but probably never if you've got a perfectly good, functional system already built, and all that is needed is 1 or 2 admins to maintain it. ---- Cyrus Home Page: http://cyrusimap.web.cmu.edu/ Cyrus Wiki/FAQ: http://cyrusimap.web.cmu.edu/twiki List Archives/Info: http://asg.web.cmu.edu/cyrus/mailing-list.html
