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If you are like me and do a lot of demos, especially ones that are running within a virtual environment (Virtual PC, VMWare Server, etc.) you have probably struggled with the best way to demonstrate the e-mail capabilities of whatever you are going to demo. In my case, Microsoft SharePoint is what I am trying to show, and although there are a few integration touch points only present in Microsoft Exchange, it is a resource hog and kind of a pain to install and maintain, especially if you are not an Exchange administrator.
Enter AXIGEN mail server. First things first, I have never played around with the “pay” versions of AXIGEN, but according to their web site, the free “Office Edition” is essentially their full-featured product, with a restriction of 5 users and 1 domain…more than enough for a small office, or a demo VPC or VM.
On their web site, they claim that you will have a 10-minute install, which is true…although if you are going to install and use their Active Directory extension, you can probably add another 5 minutes or so. All told, the very first time I used it, it took around 20 minutes from the time I started the download until I was up and running, with integration to my Windows Server 2003 Domain (Active Directory) and robust full-featured web mail running on a custom port of my choosing. The second time I set it up, it took me all of 6 or 7 minutes, start to finish.
I have not played around with AXIGEN versions for any other operating system than Windows, but if my experience on Windows is typical of how it works on other operating systems, then you should have nothing to worry about.
I cannot say enough positive things about this little product. In fact, some time in the next few months, Mack is going to start bringing a lot of his stuff “in house”, as in having a home office with one or 2 “server class” machines, getting a block of static IP addresses, and starting to do a lot of my own hosting for certain domains that I manage, including e-mail. After my first exposure to AXIGEN, Microsoft would probably have to pay me to install and use Exchange.
Feel free to download the product and try it out yourself. You will NOT be disappointed.
One more thing I would be remiss if I did not mention – it installs and runs on non-server Windows operating systems as well. Couple AXIGEN with Bamboo Solutions’ WssOnVista, and I can do a full-featured demo within my host operating system, instead of even worrying about Virtual PC or VM Ware. Now THAT’S something worth telling people about!