File, print and shared storage without per-user cloud bills: the Open Enterprise Server case for SMEs

Most SMEs have moved at least some workloads into the cloud — email has gone, chat has gone, document editing has gone — but the file share, the print queue and the shared network storage have quietly stayed behind. They are usually invisible to the business because they keep working. They are the unsung hero of the working day. OpenText Open Enterprise Server delivers all three on a predictable licensing model without the per-user growth pattern that complicates long-term cloud budgeting, and for a meaningful group of SMEs that is a reason to keep it as a deliberate choice rather than as inherited legacy.

The three workloads OES is good at

File services on OES are served from NSS volumes. The protocol story covers NCP for the legacy Novell client base and CIFS for Windows and most macOS users. Print is iPrint, with web-based driver delivery and a much lower operational burden than the equivalent Windows print server on a small site. Shared storage runs on NSS as well, with clustering for higher availability on sites that need it. None of that is glamorous. All of it has been quietly improving for over a decade and is well-understood by the small but committed community that runs it.

Where the economics win

A single OES licence covers the file, print and storage services for an entire server, with users counted at the directory level rather than per service. The bill grows with the number of servers and the number of users but does not grow per workload. A Windows Server estate serving the same functions tends to bundle multiple licences across multiple server roles, with CALs per user and per device across the stack. For an SME in the 50-to-300 user range with a single primary file and print estate, the cumulative cost of running OES is materially more predictable than the cumulative cost of running the Microsoft equivalent. The shape of that cost curve is the reason OES is still being chosen on financial grounds in 2026.

Mobile and remote access: Filr

The historical weakness of any on-premise file estate was mobile access. OpenText Filr is the answer: a file-access layer that talks NCP and CIFS at the back end and presents a modern mobile and web experience at the front. For SMEs whose staff genuinely need to read, edit and share OES-hosted files from phones, tablets and laptops away from the office, Filr deployed well closes most of the gap with OneDrive, SharePoint and the equivalent SaaS tools. It is not a replacement for those tools in every workflow, but for the file-and-print workload specifically it is genuinely capable.

iPrint and the small details that matter

iPrint is the OpenText answer to network printing and it is genuinely better than the equivalent Windows print stack on a small site. Driver delivery is centralised, queues are easier to manage, mobility printing works without the friction that print servers usually cause. For SMEs whose teams still print — design firms, manufacturers, logistics offices, schools, healthcare practices — that daily experience matters more than the licensing model and is one of the harder things to give up if you move to a cloud-first stack without an equivalent in it. The honest comparison is that OES makes printing pleasant; cloud-first stacks make printing a project.

Identity flexibility in the current generation

A meaningful criticism of older OES releases was that they assumed eDirectory as the identity store. The current generation explicitly supports using Active Directory as the identity source, including for sites that want to retain OES as the file and print tier on top of an Entra ID / Active Directory identity estate. That single change has made OES a much easier sell for SMEs that have already moved identity into Microsoft 365 but want to keep the file and print services they have always trusted running locally. The choice is no longer "either/or" — it is "both, deliberately".

What the cloud stack does that OES does not

Honesty still matters. Cloud file and print tools offer tighter integration with productivity suites, browser-only editing in many cases, real-time co-authoring, and the cross-device sync that mobile teams now expect. OES plus Filr can do most of that, but the integration depth is shallower and the user-experience polish a generation behind. If your SME has decided that real-time browser collaboration is the single most important workload, OES is the supporting tier, not the lead one. The case for keeping OES is the case for keeping the file and print tier you trust, not the case for replicating Microsoft 365 inside OES.

We help SMEs across Hertfordshire, Bedfordshire and London design file, print and storage estates that genuinely match how their teams work — including the Open Enterprise Server deployments that still earn their place in 2026. If you are weighing the cost and operational shape of your file and print estate against a cloud-first alternative, get in touch for a short, practical conversation.