Using SharePoint profils to manage other than people accounts?

In a SP 2010 project, I have to create a directory (in functional terms) which must contains :

• corporate users
• external user开发者_JAVA百科s (partners)
• resources (meeting rooms, printers, etc.)

all of this kind of entries have, of course, different data.

Profile management in SharePoint is clearly the right service to manage the corporate users. What about the others ?

Is it better (and possible) to create a profile subtype for external users and a profile sub type for resources ?

Or have I to mix the profile services with standard contact list for partners and custom list for resources ?

thanks in advance for your feedbacks.

PS: the customer is using Exchange 2007... the resources are maybe already managed in Exchange... but I don't know yet.

thx