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 ISPs, hosting 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.