Apple Server, IBM Lotus Foundations, and Microsoft SBS

Cost Analysis on Price and TCO Calculator for Small Business Servers

How to Use this Calculator:

Licensing TCO is based on hard numbers. Actual TCO maintenance and overhead costs are far more nebulous.

For example, an open-source CentOS or Ubuntu "LAMP" sever is free, but the expertise to setup and maintain is likely high for a small business as you need Linux administration experience, which means a consultant is likely needed for even small changes such as setting up printer queues, new network shares, etc. This would be a clear winner if comprehensive and intuitive graphical management tools really existed and were included.

Therefore, we are limiting this analysis to three products who all have graphical management interfaces (GUIs), and who all claim to be very easy to install, very easy to maintain, very easy to upgrade, and require no IT staff and "minimal" IT administrative knowledge.

		Best		Want to know which has the best features? See our feature comparison of Apple Server, Lotus Foundations, and Microsoft Small Business Server
		Good/Middle
		Least

For the licensing section below, update the quantities to match your environment.

Licensing (U.S. Dollars)		Apple Server		IBM Lotus Foundations		Microsoft SBS Premium
	Quantity	Item Cost	Line Total	Item Cost	Line Total	Item Cost	Line Total
Server:
Users:
Sub Total:

		Apple iWork		Lotus Symphony		Microsoft Office Standard
	Quantity	Item Cost	Line Total	Item Cost	Line Total	Item Cost	Line Total
Productivity Suite:

Licensing Notes show | hide

IT Experience Needed

		Apple Server		Lotus Foundations			Microsoft SBS Premium
	Execution Difficulty	Internet Terminology / IT Concepts	Technical Expertise Needed	Execution Difficulty	Internet Terminology / IT Concepts	Technical Expertise Needed	Execution Difficulty	Internet Terminology / IT Concepts	Technical Expertise Needed
New Install:	Very Easy	Moderate	Low	Very Easy to Easy	Moderate	Low	Easy	Moderate	Low
O/S Upgrade:	Easy to Moderate	Moderate	Low to High	Easy	Moderate	Low	Moderate to Very Difficult	Moderate to High	Moderate to Very High

Support Included and Overview of Support Add-ons

	Apple Server	Lotus Symphony	Microsoft Office Standard
	Support Types and Cost	Support Types and Cost	Support Types and Cost
Included:	90-day up-and-running phone and e-mail support included. See additional support options below.	12 months unlimited phone and e-mail support included but through a business partner who may charge a value-added premium for the handling. Called Passport Advantage Regular Notes/Domino enterprise shops call IBM Lotus directly and also have unlimited support.	See additional support options below.
Available:	Single Incident Support - Xserve or GUI only Apple Server issue support $199 - Apple Server where command-line is used $695. (Most issues will involve command-line diagnosing or fix.) "Select" - 10 incidents for year period - $5,995.00 "Preferred" - unlimited one location for year period - $19,995.00 "Alliance" - unlimited multiple locations for year period - $49,995.00 Apple Single Incident Apple Support Info	Additional support including on-site available via IBM Business Partners. Lotus licensing and support renewals are much less the 2nd year onward.	Single Incident Support - phone/e-mail (6AM-6PM PT) - $259.00 5-Pack Incident Support - phone/e-mail - $1,289 After Hours Single Incident - $515.00 E-mail Only Single Incident - $99.00 Open Value + Software Assurance Support - Includes the product (server & client) licenses and support for 3 years. - Around $350-450 for SBS Server and the 1st 5 user/device CALs for first year. Around $250-300 for each 5 user CALs. - This is a 3 year contract. Unlike Apple and IBM, you do not own the software at the end of the 3 years when you drop out. Microsoft SBS Support Info

IT Experience & Support Notes show | hide

The graphical management interfaces (GUI) of Lotus Foundations and Apple Server are simpler and less complicated than the Microsoft counterpart and less likely to require a consultant for installation, day-to-day operation, and upgrades.
If you purchase an Apple XServe, the Apple server is already installed. You just give it your business environment. Otherwise, you install the server like any normal Mac software choosing a destination drive and accepting licensing. Updates are automatic and within the Management GUI until the end of that version of software. To get to the next version (e.g. OS X 10.5 to 10.6), you need to stick in the DVD and upgrade. There is an outage for this.
If you purchase a Lotus Foundations server box, Foundations is already installed. It's not even on a drive but basically a memory stick - no drive to die. Like Apple above, you just answer business environment questions. We rated installation on Lotus Foundations as possibly a little harder than Apple Server for post-configuration tasks. The management GUI of Lotus Foundations has more options for post-install configuration for the additional services that a business may want to setup that Apple Server does not include. These include VPN tunnels between locations, the included VMware Server (a.k.a. Run), and the Domino administration Web Administration used for setting up specific policy settings not in the main management GUI of the server. Lotus Foundation updates/upgrades for the system is done from the managment GUI. Packages are installed by copying the install package file/folder to a special folder and then within the Management GUI, clicking the install for the just added package. The hardest part is usually having to click 2-3 times to acknowledge licenses assuming you actually read them and not just hit the "I agree" buttons blindly. Updates are applied while the server is up-and-running. Individual services are often "disabled" (shutdown) during upgrades of those services.
SBS is easy for a new install. It also can come pre-loaded on various servers say from IBM or Dell. Like Lotus Foundations, the server includes a hypervisor which can make add complexity to the post install but also allow you to host additional virtual servers on the same hardware. Post configuration tends to be easy enough if you know which management tool is appropriate. Generally speaking, if the SBS administrition console screen that loads has what you want, use that rather than the "real" tool. You can cause issues otherwise. The well-known Tuesday security updates often cause 5-15 minute weekly outages that are inconvenient if your business is global. These really require a SBS consultant. Upgrades can be particularly difficult and tedious, expecially with migration to new hardware or the 32-bit to 64-bit conversion. Therefore upgrades or migrations to new hardware are most definitely outside the scope of the "none" to "minimal" IT needed clause and therefore are more expensive than the Apple or IBM Lotus upgrades. Even if you are technical, you have to be very careful when searching the web (e.g. TechNet) for fixes or tips for Exchange or IIS/SharePoint administration that what you find is specifically for SBS and not for the enterprise versions.
A free installation support call may come with SBS 2008. I have used this call in the past, but I am unable to find a current MS URL to find out what support is still included. Although, it doesn't include on-site and after hours, the standard Lotus licensing support is far better than either of the other vendors. That said the amount of issues with the Apple XServe (cyrus mail file corruption aside) have been far less than the others so the lack of included support is less critical.

The product names in this review and their logos belong to their makers: Lotus Foundations Start belongs to IBM, Apple Server belongs to Apple, and Microsoft SBS Server 2008 belongs to Microsoft.