Almost anywhere I work I see the same mistake: MS Exchange. You might ask why I think so and I can tell about my experience with deploying it in 2 offices and administrating it for nearly two years. During this time I never had a feeling of comfort or satisfaction, but enough frustration of working with product having so many flaws and yet so expensive. I know no benefits of using it and over the years I advised against it.

However the mistake is not the product itself but lack of proper considerations. If you ever thought of going along with some solution for years have you asked yourself the following questions?

• Is this product the only one on market?

• Do we really want most expensive solution?

• Can we tell if the product is the best for us?

• Is this product easy in use?

• Can it be maintained easily?

• Is the cost of upgrade acceptable?

• Can we perform the upgrade easily?

• Do we consider an alternatives?

• Do we have second opinion on this?

Perhaps for MS Exchange the answer for all these questions would be no, so in my opinion most businesses do not have proof that this product should be used.

I never heard of anyone involved with Exchange administration who was happy and proud of having Exchange or who was satisfied with it.

How can we excuse delusional belief that next version of wrong product might be better? With Exchange I think it has never happen before.

So the mistake is that business do not consider alternatives seriously. In the year 2010 there are plenty of choice and absolutely no excuse for chosing the worst possible product even if it is notorious for being that popular and troublesome at the same time.

And also for popular products why not consider how many people happy with it rather than how many people using it? The difference may be huge.