ST. PAUL, Minn. - City and County Credit Union here wonders why more credit unions don’t trade in their Microsoft Exchange e-mail servers for inexpensive, plug-and-play options.
An Exchange server can cost a CU up to $50,000 the first year because it is a “bear” to maintain, according to Marc Kilgore, VP-information systems (IS) at the $350-million CU.
“For the kind of business that most credit unions are, I don’t see that we need anything in Exchange,” Kilgore explained. “We’re not big enough to need to do things like synchronize our data all over the world or tie in Voice-over Internet Protocol.”
To circumvent Exchange, City and County CU paid $3,500 about four years ago for a Mirapoint Message Server, a “hands-off,” web-based e-mail client, said Kilgore. That figure included costs for separate anti-virus and anti-spam software, he said.
Mirapoint offers all the expected features for 130 employees, including automated forwarding, mail sorting and groups, and calendaring and address books, he said.
“We talk to our peers and laugh when they talk about that fact that they have to have Exchange administrators,” Kilgore continued. “You can spend more money maintaining Exchange that you might for an entire Mirapoint box. I just don’t get why people use Exchange.”
“Our IT department doesn’t spend even five minutes per week maintaining e-mail,” he added.
Exchange requires CUs to install and “cluster” the servers, he said. Then, backups, restores and recovers must be implemented in the cluster–and that’s all before day-to-day maintenance, said Kilgore.
The Mirapoint server is “simple,” containing its own operating system, with automated back-up imaging of the system and data to an internal CD-ROM, said Kilgore. “It’s built like a tank and made for plug-and-play. In the event of a catastrophic failure, you can rebuild it remotely with the CD.”
Mirapoint suits most users at the credit union, but City and County CU continues to support other e-mail applications, as well, Kilgore added. Whereas tellers at the CU don’t need features beyond Mirapoint Web mail and calendaring, some executives would rather use the Microsoft Outlook client. And the IS department runs an e-mail client from Thunderbird that allows for encrypted messaging.
Kilgore said he is glad that most employees don’t need Microsoft Outlook. “Most users trash the Outlook client so often that it’s a support nightmare. When we switched from Outlook to Mirapoint, all of our problems went away.”
Mirapoint messaging is protected via Secure Sockets Layer (SSL)–a sufficient, if not impenetrable encryption protocol, said Kilgore. “But if employees needed stronger protection, I’d throw in a virtual private network connection.”
City and County CU is the only credit union using Message Server, according to Mirapoint. “We’re their small-business guinea pig,” said Kilgore.
Beyond the e-mail and calendar features, Mirapoint can also provide file sharing, instant messaging, unified communications, electronic white boards and conferencing.
Mirapoint can support a number of e-mail applications that an enterprise may choose to run concurrently, including Microsoft Exchange or Outlook and IBM Lotus, depending on the needs of employees. Since Mirapoint is Web-based, the applications can be delivered from the Mirapoint server, rather than installed on each end-user’s desktop. (c) 2008 The Credit Union Journal and SourceMedia, Inc. All Rights Reserved. http://www.cujournal.com http://www.sourcemedia.com
