A recurring question that we are constantly being asked is “Is XC Connect an alternative to Microsoft Exchange?” The short answer is “yes, but no….”

To elaborate:

Yes, XC Connect is an alternative to Microsoft Exchange in that it enables group collaboration and allows users to create, modify, and share Calendar, Contacts, and/or Task information, from both “personal” and “public” folders.

But No, XC Connect is “not” an alternative to Microsoft Exchange in that it does not provide the email server capability that Microsoft Exchange does, and neither does it allow the sharing of other elements within Outlook, such as “Journal” and “Notes”.

Why didn’t Xchange Network go down that route and make XC Connect a true replacement for MS Exchange? The reasons are simple:

All of our users already have an email server/system in place… so there was no point in re-creating that wheel.
When polling users, we found that Journal and Notes sharing is a very low priority…. Calendars, Contacts, and finally Tasks data were at the very top.

However…. there are things that make XC Connect very unique, and things that that Microsoft Exchange does not even attempt to do. For example, XC Connect:

allows users to share data across virtually any desktop application (all you need is an XC ‘connector’ to that application).
allows users to install the software server component on almost any operating system (just has to support the Java Virtual Machine). We provide install packages for Windows, Linux, and OSX.
allows users to use whatever email server/system that they wish.
allows users on different email domains to still share data (for example users with an email domain “(name)@company.com” can still share data with other non-company users at for example, (name)@yahoo.com).
is simpler and way less expensive to install and manage….

There are more subtle differences, but those are the highlights….