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by 9dev 444 days ago
I don’t know any that come close in functionality, configurability, and maintainability. Exchange scales from a one-person handyman to Fortune 500 without a hitch, it comes with an office suite and cloud storage space, you find specialists for it on every corner, and it mostly just works. That’s pretty hard to beat, even if I’m personally more than unhappy to be so dependent on Microsoft, a US product, and closed-source software; there’s just not much I can do about it.
1 comments
genewitch 444 days ago
what did people do before Exchange Online (or whatever the cloud offering is called)? they just didn't have email?
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9dev 443 days ago
Thing is, I’ve been doing this since before Exchange Online, I know.

People used a few different groupware solutions, worked with bespoke IMAP installations on Linux servers, or (the vast majority) had on-premises Exchange servers running locally. It all required lots of tech wizardry, tinkering, duct tape and hope.

It was a long while before we had turn-key solutions, and you needed actually knowledgeable folks running your IT operations, and nothing was as fully integrated or cheaply available as Exchange Online.

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genewitch 443 days ago
what was hotmail using?

a.k.a. i think you're missing the point. It's ok. You want knowledgeable people running your key infra. Outsourcing that to a company that doesn't respect privacy seems to be shooting oneself in the foot.

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SSLy 443 days ago
>what was hotmail using?

IIRC as they've been acquihired they had their own software stack back in 90's.

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9dev 443 days ago
No, sorry, I think you're missing the point. There is one Hotmail, and a million businesses that need reliable email. I don’t want to outsource my key infra, but that’s the only viable option for most companies.

Getting email right requires lots of infra expertise, steady financial expenses, and time. Most companies just don’t have any of these available, and it makes zero economic sense as well if a product like Microsoft 365 exists.

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bongodongobob 443 days ago
I don't know man, what did people do before computers? Why does what people used to do have any bearing on the world now?
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SSLy 443 days ago
On-prem Exchange. And as someone on the user end, it was even worse.
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