Koozali.org: home of the SME Server
Legacy Forums => Experienced User Forum => Topic started by: Peter Birdsall on October 26, 2003, 09:46:12 PM
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Can any one explain to me why it is worth buying the commercial version:
If this means that everything works out of the box:
vpn, just click yes and configure the windows box,
no strange problems
and upgradable over the developer version without any problems,
then I would be interested.
Also, is there a way just to buy the cd, normally, without "resellers" providing hardware, extra services etc. (The reseller in my country is not very clear about what is offered, and the standerd price of mital is not clear.)
The mital site is completely user unfriendly in its marketing of this product, to users who just want to buy the software and get on with it.
(I.e comparing the developer product with the pay one, and not offering a credit card buy with download.)
The system is good, and many companies such as mine have grown bigger with it, so make it easier for us to buy it, and save hassel.
Any help appreciated and thanks.
I live in the Netherlands.
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I have emailed Mitel, and still have not received a reply regarding the same issue. It seems that this product is not sold as a "Stand Alone", "Off-The-Shelf", "Retail Version" product line.
Although many companies have chosen to openly distribute though regular Top-Teir distribution channels, or direct from their own websites, Mitel seems to have a hold their product, requiring us to go through untrained Tip-and-Ring dealers to purchase this commercial version of SME server.
Good Luckand please share your experiences...
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> Can any one explain to me why it is worth buying the
> commercial version:
I believe their are several reasons. Top on my list:
1. The product is very much a turn-key product. You install it from the CD, activate service-link, download the latest blades, and you're up and running with all of the latest features. No need to do a bunch of research to figure out how things work, etc, etc (I spent hours doing this when I was using only the developer version). What's more, everything works great. No need to fiddle and fine tune the features to get them to work right..
2. Very reasonably priced.
3. Server-side AV scanning is effective and transparent. I've tried serveral of the SME AV contribs and Mitel's implementation is the best I've used. Other than looking at the quarantine list, I haven't had to do anything to keep things working correctly.
3. Great technical support. I rarely wait more than half a day for a response from my reseller and/or MItel. In fact, I recently had a problem with one of the add-on blades that caused me some concern. I emailed both my reseller and SME support with the issue (email went in at about 9:00 pm on the evening I discovered the problem). The next morning, a tech from Mitel called my office offering to help solve the problem. Now that's support!
> If this means that everything works out of the box:
> vpn, just click yes and configure the windows box,
> no strange problems
Pretty close. You might need to look at the technical manual to configure client machines, but setting up SME is very easy.
> and upgradable over the developer version without any problems,
Depends one what you've done to your developer machine. If you've installed a bunch of contribs, you'll might run into problems.
Greg Zartman
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Greg, when you go the commercial route on a server, how does it affect your ability to install non-mitel contribs and retain support?
I'm just curious.
G
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> Greg, when you go the commercial route on a server, how does
> it affect your ability to install non-mitel contribs and
> retain support?
Mitel's policy is that they don't support a system that has been "customized." However, I've installed a few contribs on my SME server and it hasn't really affected my support. I do recall one support question I sent them that sent up a red flag. I was having a problem with webmail and php. Mitel "sshed" into my machine and found my indexer contrib, which adds a httpd.conf custom template fragment. The tech did say that they won't support a customized configuration. I removed my indexer so that they tech could complete his review of the issue. Fair enough... I was having a problem that involved apache and I'd customized apache. Why should they have to worry about my contrib possibly causing the problem.
I'm pretty picky about what I do to my SME service-link box as I don't want to break anything. I think I have maybe three contribs that I've added to my setup: my indexer contrib, Chalie Brady's rbl mailfront contrib, and Stephan Nobles chroot FTP contrib.
I think you'd find that many of the most popular non-mitel contribs have server-link counterparts. The need to customize is greatly reduced with service-link.
Greg Zartman
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Thanks for your replies.
We have switched the server over to 6.03 (from 5.6) with all updates, installed all the contribs, and got them to work, except for a couple, and are running fine again and should be able to go another year like this.
Only Twiggi isn't yet compatible with version 6 of sme, (users can't manipulate mail folders) due to the new imap version. We shall just have to wait until one of the people dealing with Twiggi for sme updates the php.
Will email the Dutch reseller of sme to invite them to come and persuade us that we should go commercial!
Peter
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We took a look at the commercial version. The reseller we contacted was in the US Pacific NW. They were completely clueless about Linux and the Mitel/E-Smith product. When we asked questions the "answers" that were provided were the same promo materials available at Mitels site. The costs quoted were rather high. We finally bagged the effort and went with a hardware firewall with a GPL version of E-Smith behind the firewall and another vendors anti-virus solution. For us at least the resller in our geographic area was worthless. The product is great and it needs a new approach that is more friendly towards those who might wish to purchase it.
BTW just in case anyone thinks I am being negative towards E-Smith, i'm not. I really think its a great product and used to sell it myself.
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John,
I live in Eugene, Oregon (in the US PNW). Fire me an email off-list and I'll send you the contact information for my reseller. He's very knowledgable with *nix OSs and does a great job and supporting his clients.
Regards,
Greg Zartman
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You probably already know this but Twiggi has now been fixed for SME 6
http://www.myezserver.com/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=490
http://mirror.contribs.org/smeserver/contribs/dmay/mitel/contrib/Twiggi
Cheers
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Just installed my new SME 6000 commercial version software -- got it from a mitel reseller -- it did not have a ServiceLink subscription # in the package though -- I'll try to run that down on Monday, but meanwhile I have many questions about what is the future direction of Blades and updating -- is the path I'm on going to become a dead-end? I want the convenience of auto updating for spamprevention and such.