This is going to be interesting

http://www.edbrill.com/ebrill/edbrill.nsf/dx/exchange-2007---a-hardware-manufacturers-wet-dream

Ed has always been great at crunching the numbers and that is some great exposure. I also have to check into see what they have done because previous version of Exchange never used instancing, PAE and AWE so anything over 4gb was irrelevant because of the efficiency. I am guessing they just get some of that for free with the move to the 64 bit platform. I haven't checked the facts in terms of the numbers and if Exchange is going to be only 64 bit only (still a bit confusing because of the 32bit trial) but that aside I think it raises interesting point about the future of communication based hardware/software bundles.

The point basically is that reliability > hardware cost. Now I am not saying that Exchange is reliable nor am I trying to defend Exchange's hardware cost but $.07 on the fact that they made the move to 64bit only for reliability reasons. Take Ed's numbers and say the server hardware number is $70,000 for 6,000 users. What if the server was so reliable that you didn't need redundancy beyond high speed backup or an administrator? Are we moving to the model like the phone servers where people spend $40-50k on the server and buy the $10k service contract but don't have a day to day admin (at least in most medium size businesses)? With most businesses I talk to expecting to see these servers to last for 5-7 years, they are looking at a cost of $20 to $23 per user per year over that period of time with the $10k a year services contract. Chicken scratch!

For small and medium businesses this model actually is better for them because most of them will lease the hardware so no upfront $70k and if they don't have to hire an individual to administrate it bonus! The battle really is going to get down to reliability with these components especially as more and more folks pick up unified messaging. I give the lead right now to Lotus because a) better track record and b) more experience on the unified messaging front but this is where the battle is.

I do miss the day of Hubert telling me that the cc:Mail Post Office could run on a x286 it just had to have an OS that supported file and record locking. :) Simplicity is sometimes the best solution isn't it.