Overview

The objective of this page is to compare the cost of implementing a simple IT based solution typically required by small to mid size firms. We compare the costs associated with implementing a typical On Premise solution with a corresponding Cloud Based solution.

For this particular analysis we will look at a firm with 25 employees who require basic IT services such as:

• Exchange Email – fully functional enterprise email with Contacts, Calendar, and Blackberry and iPhone support.
• Document Repository and Collaboration – SharePoint Portal with secure private web sites for individuals and departments.
• Office Communicator – Instant Messaging capabilities along with presence awareness.
• LiveMeeting – Ability to have desktop video conferencing and desktop sharing with anyone with access to the internet.

All of the above services will be fully integrated with standard Microsoft Outlook and Office 2007.

Conclusion

The Cloud Based solution is significantly more cost effective in terms of both the implementation costs and the on-going fees. It also provides full redundancy and disaster recovery capabilities.

This analysis takes a very conservative approach to pricing the on premise solution. The on premise costs do not include items such as the cost of implementing redundant fail-over systems or the space costs associated with having to store the physical servers. These costs would not be required for a Cloud based solution.

Note: If the client has an issue with the $15,000 One-time implementation costs associated with a Cloud based solution, we may consider amortizing this payment out into 12, 24, or 36 month payments.

Analysis

As a Microsoft partner, Cloud9 can provide the above IT services for only $10/month/user. A total monthly re-occurring cost of $250 (for 25 users). By implementing this fully Cloud based solution, clients require no additional hardware on their premise. They simply need access to the internet.

On top of the monthly charge there is a one-time consulting/migration fee. This one-time fee is required to plan and implement the migration of all your data to the Cloud based solution. The cost of this one-time fee depends on a few parameters such as the number of employees, average mailbox size of employees, number of files in your document repository, etc…. Generally this one-time fee for migrating 25 employees is about $15,000.

The minimum configuration of hardware and software to get the same IT services as discussed above from an on premise solution would require four servers and the following software:

• Microsoft Exchange
• Microsoft SharePoint Portal
• Office Communication server
• Small Business Server

Note: This minimal configuration does not support any fault tolerance, redundancy or disaster recovery features that are available for free in the Cloud Based solution.

For a breakdown of the costs associated with implementing an on premise please solution please see the table below: