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With the release of Collax Business Server (CBS), Microsoft's Small Business Server 2003 (SBS) is starting to look a little like France in 1940, with Germany amassing troops on the border, readying invasion.
Collax has made it no secret that it intends to battle Microsoft for the small business server market and is aggressively seeking soldiers in the form of solution providers.
And with the recall and delay of the R2 upgrade to SBS, Microsoft now lacks the re-enforcements it needs to strengthen its line, creating an even more tempting target for Collax.
Analogies aside, VARs will become the deciding factor in Collax's success.
CBS is a German-engineered version of a Finnish operating system (Linux) that has been redesigned for the U.S. small business market. That said, it brings surprising flexibility and ease of use to a market that Microsoft has dominated. Released Aug. 15 in the United States, Collax offers a five-user version at no charge to interested users and higher user count versions at a price point comparable to other Linux-based small business server offerings.
With Collax's target being SBS, it's only fair to compare the primary elements of the two products to see how they stack up against each other.
Pricing Winner: Collax Business Server
When it comes to initial cost, CBS has an unfair advantage over SBS. A five user version of CBS is free to download, while a 5 user version of SBS 2003 standard edition has a retail price of $599. When the user count moves up to 10 seats, it becomes a little easier to compare the products. CBS lists for $450 for 10 users and includes a year's worth of updates. SBS 2003 basic moves up in price another $489 to add 5 more seats, for a total of $1,088.
While CBS comes in at about half the price of SBS, solution providers will need to add the optional Open Exchange Groupware product for an additional $610, bringing the price up to $1,060, which makes a 10-seat deployment very close in pricing to SBS. Open Exchange brings a user portal with scheduling, forums, document routing and several other capabilities to create a groupware solution for small business users. Microsoft bundles in those capabilities with its Sharepoint services portal.
Microsoft partners purchase SBS 2003 R2 via a standard distribution model, while Collax partners purchase licenses directly from Collax. Margins are easier to calculate with Collax, with set discounts for partners determined by volume sold. Collax partners can expect margins of 30 percent or more, while Microsoft partners will be at the mercy of their distributors and may see margins of less than 25 percent. However, product margins are a very small piece of the puzzle, as most VARs will make their profits from installation and support services, along with hardware sales. Nevertheless, CBS has a little more initial profit potential for VARs than SBS.
Installation Winner: Collax Business Server
CBS is one of the easiest server operating systems to setup. Driven by broad hardware support and a completely automated installation process, VARs need to do little more than boot off the Collax CD to complete an Initial install of the product. Also, CBS does not have the overhead associated with running a desktop style OS on top of the Server OS, which SBS requires for administration purposes. All of the primary features of CBS are available from a single installation CD, while SBS comes on several CDs or a DVD. Basic install takes about 15 minutes with CBS, SBS can take several hours to install.
NEXT: Collax Business Server Wins Some, Loses Some
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