[nightlifelover]

Provide something better. I really mean it, there is no alternative which is qualitatively equivalent to MS exchange. Same for the office. Google has their cloud products, but I don't think that any government should have to store their data on googles servers.

[djcapelis]

The contract was for Microsoft's cloud products. Not locally hosted Exchange.

[Elepsis]

The suite of products in question includes, among other things, remotely hosted Exchange.

[beagle3]

For which there are perfectly adequate alternatives that do not involve Microsoft -- e.g. Google Apps.

[Elepsis]

Anyone who thinks that Google Apps are a "perfectly adequate" alternative to Exchange has never worked at a company of over 100 users with different needs and desires.

[rbanffy]

> there is no alternative which is qualitatively equivalent to MS exchange

You say that as it was a bad thing. I would be very happy if I hadn't to accommodate most of my professional communications around the idiosyncrasies of Exchange and the combination of Outlook, Entourage, Mail/iCal and Evolution clients.

[Tamerlin]

This is government work. The US government continues to award contracts to companies that consistently fail -- either massively over budget, extremely late, incomplete, non-functional, or (most often) some combination of all four.