I sent the following email to several school districts and a couple of 501(c)3's in my area today...
"A recent study by the Radicati Group on ‘Microsoft Exchange 2003 Total Cost of Ownership’ concludes that Microsoft Office is much more cost effective than Lotus Notes with an average acquisition cost of $450.39 per user with a total cost of ownership of $107.02 per user per year. While schools and non-profit organizations are usually able to negotiate much lower pricing, either through educational discounts or through the little known ‘Microsoft Charity Program’, it does not eliminate the need and expense of administration, training, etc. In the current economic environment, most schools and 501(c)3's would do well to evaluate the benefits of Google Apps Education Edition – a cost effective collaboration suite powered by Google that delivers many of the collaboration features of the Microsoft Back Office suite at a small fraction of the deployment cost and maintenance costs. In fact, the Google Apps Education Edition has NO DEPLOYMENT OR ANNUAL COSTS and ongoing per user administration costs are lower because Microsoft certification is not required. See for yourself at http://www.google.com/a/help/intl/en/admins/customers.html#edu. [By the way, the Google Apps Education Edition is free for 501(c)3's as well…]
I’ll be calling you to talk more about this topic. Please contact me via return email if you’d like a copy of the report I mentioned earlier..."
This is like offering free money -- I wonder how many of them will take me up on it? What most administrators don't realize is that their tech people have a vested interest, not necessarily in doing the right thing, but in keeping the school or business on Microsoft technology, regardless of how ineffective it is from a cost standpoint. I'll keep you posted...
By the way, what about your business? Should you be looking at this? Of course you should!
