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MAPI/EWS Licensing and Pricing
Announcement by Tim Uzzanti - 9/26/2019 at 9:38 AM
Employee Post
As promised, here is the summary for MAPI / EWS licensing, pricing and availability.  Many of you noticed that a couple of previous threads were removed. This is because a couple of customers intentionally degraded SmarterTools and our employees, which ruined the thread.  Below is a summary of information we provided across those threads.  I'm hoping that conversations will be professional moving forward as we have already banned one customer based on their toxic participation in those previous threads. 
 
First off, MAPI requires EWS for some functionality. Therefore, they must be licensed together because they work together. This is the primary reason why they’re now grouped together as a paid add-on.  
 
As I hope you understand, the pricing for these products is dictated by Microsoft. They own the patents and licensing, and they dictate what we, as a partner and service provider, must charge for it. MAPI and EWS are separate protocols, but we negotiated pricing with Microsoft to find a common ground that will satisfy their requirements while not pricing customers out of the solutions. Offering both protocols as one, complementary solution was less expensive than having them priced separately. While it’s true that some people may pay more based on the change, many will be paying less.  
 
As for offering an EWS license as well as a MAPI/EWS option, the number of customers wanting/needing MAPI far outweighs the customers who want/need just EWS. We easily have at least a 50-1 split in people currently using Microsoft Outlook on Windows machines as opposed to Apple Mail and eM Client users. Therefore, MAPI is needed by the majority of SmarterMail users and this was a leverage point when negotiating with Microsoft for reduced licensing prices. 
 
Finally, people are asking why these changes were implemented now, even though MAPI is still technically in BETA and not available for production release. The answer to that is, again, due to our discussions with Microsoft. They realized that the BETA for MAPI would be longer than we normally run BETAs for new product releases. As such, we had to put a paid licensing model out there in order to be able to continue our testing and distribution of “trial” licenses for MAPI/EWS for the duration of the BETA. All that we do surrounding ANY Microsoft product is laid out for us in various Licensing Agreements we have in place, so this is dictated to us by Microsoft.

In the past – both on our website as well as here in the Community -- we have provided several SmarterMail vs Exchange and/or SmarterMail vs. Competitor X pricing scenarios.  Some people have chosen not to believe anything we say, much less take the examples we provide, which clouds other peoples perspectives.  

The bottom line, the cost for SmarterMail is pennies compared to Exchange and is why SmarterMail can be used in high volume environments by ISPshosting companies and other service providers.

Here is a quick SmarterMail vs Merak and SmarterMail vs Kerio breakdown, using 500 mailboxes and any matching premium add-ons to match products as closely as possible.  As you will see, SmarterMail is significantly less expensive while providing a truly native MAPI solution in comparison as our competitors provide plugins that are limited in functionality and problematic.


SmarterMail Enterprise 500 - $799

EAS (50 mailboxes) - $349 

MAPI/EWS - $299 

Cyren Premium Antispam - $349 

Cyren Preimum Antivirus - $349 

TOTAL: $2,145 or $4.29 per mailbox 

 

Merak Premium - $1,795 

EAS (50 mailboxes) - $249.50 

MAPI/EWS - N/A 

Premium Antispam - $1,200 

Premium Antivirus - $1,629 

TOTAL: $4,873.50 or $9.75 per mailbox 

 

Kerio Connect Deluxe - $15,015 

EAS – Included 

MAPI/EWS - $24 per user for “Kerio Connect” - $12,000 

Premium Antispam - Included with Kerio Connect 

Premium Antivirus  Included with Kerio Connect 

TOTAL: $27,015 or $54.03 per mailbox 


I hope this answers the initial questions that were posed in the few previous threads surrounding licensing and costs. 

Tim Uzzanti
CEO
SmarterTools Inc.

4 Replies

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Hi Tim,

Thank you for the update, but it still doesn't explain why the MAPI mailbox count is tied to the SM user count.

With EWS this wasn't an issue due to the fixed price per server, but it now seems unfair that an unlimited SM user has to pay so much extra for unlimited MAPI when they may only need 100 or so.

A post earlier this year said that you didn't want to go to a "per mailbox" fee, but isn't this basically what you've done? 
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Hi Ben,
i think, Tim has written, that some people pay more but the most people pay less. We have the same problem in hosting, that the most of our mailboxes are not active sync or MAPI/EWS, that are 2-5%. But i think, if you take a look in the complete product and cost, they are very good on the market and better then the most other.
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Tim Uzzanti Replied
Employee Post
Ben,

The reason MAPI / EWS is tied to the level of SmarterMail is because that is how Microsoft licenses it.  EAS is the only protocol they licenses separately and I explained that in a previous thread.  The reason Microsoft licenses EAS differently is because of services like Gmail where they implemented it for every user / mailbox and Microsoft wanted licensing for each user and mailbox. This is why Gmail eventually discontinued EAS and went to WebDAV so they didn't need to pay Microsoft even though WebDAV would be a lesser option.

For most of our customers, they appreciate that MAPI / EWS is for the whole server because they can enable the functionally for all Domains / Users and provide a higher level of Mailbox functionality compared to other hosting companies and service providers. 

These same people who appreciate the MAPI / EWS licensing are upset EAS is licensed the way it is.  I know there are customers like you like the EAS licensing method and dislike MAPI / EWS tied to the level. 

Bottom line, its how Microsoft licenses these protocols and what works for you doesn't work for others and what works for others doesn't work for you.  All we can do is negotiate the best deals possible which we have done REALLY WELL and have been able to offer native licensed protocols much cheaper than our competitors who pay no licensing to Microsoft because they made add-ons to Outlook that are not using MAPI and are limited in functionality and buggy.

I really hope this is understood.  I have no other way of explaining it.

Tim Uzzanti CEO SmarterTools Inc. www.smartertools.com
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Thanks Tim to explain it to us.

I'm looking forward for a working MAPI release!


Gabriele Maoret - Head of SysAdmins at SERSIS Currently manages 6 SmarterMail installations (1 in the cloud for SERSIS which provides services to a few hundred third-party email domains + 5 on-premise for customers who prefer to have their mail server in-house)

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