Troubleshooter: Using Windows Server 2003's POP Service

Can we ditch Exchange in favor of Windows Server 2003's POP service? One of our IT administrators cites this service as proof that Exchange is overkill for most companies.

Windows 2003 does include a perfectly good POP server, which I suspect Microsoft added for extremely small businesses and to provide a feature checkoff for comparisons with Linux. If you're happy with bare-bones POP email, you can certainly use this feature. Of course, POP is a minimal client protocol, with no support for offline use, rules, folders, or filtering—and those are just a few of its limitations. When compared with the Exchange JET engine, the storage mechanism that the POP server uses is slow and wasteful. POP also doesn't provide Web access, calendaring, or a myriad other features found in Exchange that are beyond basic email pickup support. A unicycle and a sedan can both take you to the airport, but the sedan is more functional, flexible, and useful.