Free alternative to Exchange and Outlook

I have been doing a lot more research into open source projects.  These would be all for replacements of Micrsoft products.  While I am not a Microsoft basher, I am a cost conscious business owner.  Microsoft products are not cheap.  Especially the servers.  It would cost me thousands of dollars to purchase an Exchange server for only a few people.  This is on top of the Windows Server license.

Well, what does one do then?  Here is where open source comes in handy.  Free alternatives to Microsoft products.  Are they as good as what Microsoft does?  Yes and No.  It all depends on what you need it for.

For example, if you needed to use Photoshop, you will not find a comparable version that works on Linux.  You would have to use Windows and purchase the full version of photoshop.

I did a refresher on linux a few weeks ago by installing ubuntu and several virtualization software packages to test with.  Is it as easy as Windows?  No.  Is it FREE?  Yep.

I wanted to direct attention to this article that I found. Open Source Exchange Replacement.  It seems to do a great job summerizing the alternatives to Exchange.  I haven’t tried any of them out but I will be doing some testing on them.