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Many companies today have a need to share resources like calendars and contacts across multiple people within the organization.  There might be a need for a CEO to share a personal calendar with an assistant, a public calendar that everyone needs to see or possibly a company-wide group of business contacts.

As an IT consultant, when I’m out in the field many customers ask me about using MobileMe to sync all of their companies contacts and calendars.  For a small business office of one or two people, this might be a viable solution, however, for companies that need more control over their resources, a server based solution is probably a better way to go.
The issue with Apple’s MobileMe service in a small business IT environment is that it is designed for an individual end user that is not part of a group.  The service is designed for use by a single person to sync his or her contacts, calendars, bookmarks, keychains and preferences across multiple devices including Macs, PCs, iPods and iPhones.  While this is great for “Johnny Enduser”, it becomes an issue when Johnny wants to share only specific calendars or contacts with someone else.

Unfortunately, MobileMe has an “all or nothing” approach to most things.

A user can setup his MobileMe account to sync with another user’s machine, but when they do that – if calendars, contacts or bookmarks are selected to sync – then all of their calendars, contacts and bookmarks are synced to that new user’s computer.  Further, any changes that new user makes – whether it’s adding altering or deleting data – get synced to the MobileMe cloud and pushed to any other devices syncing with that account.  Of course, the issue with this is that anybody who has access to the account can alter account data as they see fit, even if the actual owner of the account does not want the changes made.  There are no access rights, there are no privileges.

Everyone has access to whatever they want on MobileMe, so it’s easy to see how this could be a problem in a business environment (or even in a personal one.)

Enter the server based solution.

Typically an Exchange or Exchange alternative, the server based solution brings permissions and delegates into the mix.  This allows for various levels of control over who has access to what information and how they can alter the information they have access to.  Throw into the mix individual user accounts (where each user has the ability to sync their own information, calendars and contacts) and you have a very elegant and individually customizable solution.  For large companies or for customers that already have an existing server, this is a great idea.

But what about costs?

The problem with this solution, of course, is the cost.  Servers, at minimum, are going to cost you a few hundred dollars, minimum, to setup (and that is a very underpowered and bare bones solution).  Add to that all the associated hardware software and internet costs and you suddenly are in the hole a couple of grand for a mail server.

So, what is the low cost solution to this problem for a small business or organization that can’t necessarily afford to purchase their own mail server?

Fortunately, there are several hosted Exchange solutions out there that offer most or all of the benefits of an Exchange server without all the associated costs that come with administering it yourself.  You also benefit by having redundancy and almost 100% uptime with a hosted solution.  All you have to do is pay a monthly fee and you are setup with your own hosted Exchange server.  You can even, in most all situations, use your own domain name on your email instead of @me.com with the MobileMe solution.

When is hosted Exchange not the right fit?

Of course, hosted Exchange isn’t a great solution for everyone.  Companies that already own a server would probably see a mail server pay for itself after just a few months.  For larger companies with tens, hundreds or even thousands of employees, the cost of a hosted Exchange server quickly adds up when you need to have more and more users and more server space, so cost quickly becomes a factor even when you consider that you may need a dedicated IT department and several machines to maintain the mail service.

In conclusion, how you go about hosting your email and calendars should be tailored to you and your business.  There is no blanket solution for everyone.  Where MobileMe might work for one situation, it might not be the best solution for another, seemingly very similar situation.

While an Exchange server might be the answer for some, it might not be in the budget and hosted Exchange may be the way to go.  And, as always, if you are unsure as to which route is the best for you, an Iris engineer can help you asses your business needs and help make a suggestion.