MSExchange Editor

MONTREAL, (August 10, 2007) – SherWeb, a leading hosting provider of Microsoft Exchange Server and BlackBerry, proudly announces its hosted offering for Microsoft Exchange Server 2007 software. At the same time, SherWeb precedes some of its closest rivals and shows its devotion and ability to offer the most relevant and up to date technology to its customers.

“SherWeb offers a complete hosted solution for Microsoft Exchange Server 2007 in Canada that competes with Canadian, European and American markets,” states Peter Cassar, CEO of SherWeb.

SherWeb is the only company in the industry to offer 3 GB of personal disk space for only $8.95 USD per user, per month. To this already generous offer, SherWeb adds many free additional features such as active sync mobile synchronization, advanced anti-spam filtering, the hosting of Microsoft Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 and a copy of Microsoft Outlook 2007 software. Proud advocate of the new business trend model that is software plus services, SherWeb offers economical and tailored business class email solution to small, medium and large businesses.

The powerful combination of the improved Outlook® 2007 messaging and collaboration client and Exchange Server 2007 gives customers a better all around email experience. Amongst many of the new characteristics, end-users will particularly enjoy the redesigned user interface in Microsoft Outlook Web Access 2007 that allows smart meeting booking, better search functionalities and file integration for Windows® operating system with SharePoint Server 2007, and the ability to manage mob

Abridean’s partnership with RIM gives service provider the provisioning edge

HALIFAX, NS – August 8, 2007 – Abridean Inc. (www.abridean.com), leaders in the development of hosted application and provisioning solutions, announced today that top-rated USA.NET®, The Global eMessaging Service Provider® has deployed abridean's Provisor for BlackBerry® Enterprise Server solution to manage thousands of USA.NET Hosted BlackBerry users.

AbrideanProvisor is an application provisioning and management platform that enables service providers like USA.NET to automate and simplify the maintenance of hosted enterprise applications. USA.NET has been using ProvisorSP for their Hosted Exchange services since 2001.

"Our service providers have been seeing a steady increase in demand for both Hosted Microsoft® Exchange and BlackBerry services – USA.NET's success is well deserved," said Peter Bidgood, Product Manager with abridean.

"Our partnership with Research In Motion further highlights abridean's commitment to developing innovative solutions for enterprises and hosted service providers that help them boost efficiency, improve security, and meet regulatory compliance standards."

Abridean has been a member of the BlackBerry Alliance Program since 2004.

USA.NET FOUND CLEAR RATIONALE FOR DEPLOYMENT OF ABRIDEAN PROVISOR

"Customer demand and our success with Hosted BlackBerry prompted us to make our provisioning process even more efficient," said Steve O'Brien, USA.NET Senior Director of Services Development. "With abrideanProvisor we can now manage BlackBerry smartphones using the same w

In the past few weeks, I have been writing based on the topic "key questions to Exchange Hosting Providers", as it helps customers to make a decision before choosing the right providers for their Exchange Hosting services. This post is a continuation on my effort on the same topic. If you haven't read my previous posts on this topic, here you go:

Top questions to ask before choosing your Microsoft Exchange Hosting Provider
Why an Infrastructure Check is Important Before Choosing a Hosting Provider

After carefully going through the features of Hosted Exchange and benefits of your preferred Hoster, the next stage could be to scan through the SLA (Service Level Agreement) which can eventually guarantee the reliable operation mode & support structure.

In the information Technology Service business, the two most critical components of SLA are uptime & high availability. Although most of the service providers offer uptime from 99% onwards, you may find huge differences in terms of hours/minute. For example, the following comparison values give an uptime metric with the use of high available systems/infrastructure:

99.9% ≡ Less than 43.8 minutes per month downtime
99.99% ≡ Less than 4.38 minutes per month downtime
99.999% ≡ Less than 0.44 minutes per month downtime

In the above example, you can see that availability is measured in terms of percentile and this value is basically the uptime of a given year. In other words, the MS Exchange servers in the hosting environment offer a genuine mechanism of continuous availability, which comes with a higher price tag as

WebHost Automation and groupSPARK partnership allows Web hosting providers to offer hosted Microsoft Exchange Server as an additional service.

Bristol, UK and Burlington, Massachusetts, USA — July 23, 2007 – WebHost Automation Ltd, producer of a leading Windows Web hosting control panel Helm, has integrated its product with groupSPARK’s private label Software as a Service (SaaS) platform. As a result of this partnership, WebHost Automation’s customers can now sell hosted Microsoft Exchange Server, Windows SharePoint Services, Dynamics CRM and other mobile device services to their customers.

According to internal estimates, the growth for Hosted Microsoft Exchange Server represents more than $600 Million in new revenues for hosting providers. To tap into this demand, Web hosting providers are looking for ways to offer hosted Microsoft Exchange Server as an additional service. By integrating HELM with groupSPARK’s platform, WebHost Automation’s customers can now instantly provide their customers with access to Microsoft Exchange Server 2007. No investment in infrastructure or personnel is required. Additionally, HELM Web hosting providers are able to significantly grow their revenue while providing their customers with anywhere, anytime access to their messaging and collaboration data.

“Ease of e-mail management and administration in a hosted environment are critical elements in today’s business climate,” said John Zanni, managing director of Worldwide Hosting for the Communications Sector at Microsoft Corp. “As a result, we are seeing a growing demand for hosted Micr

When global staffing firm Adecco Group began an effort one year ago to consolidate and outsource its five data centers into one, Dave Bossi came to the realization that moving the data center would also move three separately managed Microsoft Exchange e-mail servers of different versions and a fourth legacy e-mail technology—with potentially huge disruption to 10,000 e-mail users. Bossi, the North American vice president of IT, thought this might be an opportunity to rethink the company’s e-mail strategy. “E-mail tends to get lost in the mix. It becomes an afterthought,” Bossi says. Unless, of course, something goes wrong.

Bossi’s case for outsourcing broke down like this: If Adecco moved the e-mail servers to a separate outsourced provider, the e-mail systems would be unaffected in the event of any trouble (like network overloads) at Adecco’s data center. Having a dedicated e-mail provider also makes administering e-mail accounts, managing servers and handling frequent software patches more efficient and less dependent on other data center resources. It shifts the responsibility for malware protection to a specialist—and eliminates the need to manage anti-malware appliances. CIO Alwin Brunner liked Bossi’s logic. Adecco is consolidating its four e-mail platforms into one, which is hosted by USA.NET (separate from Adecco’s outsourced data center that IBM manages).

Today, Bossi and Brunner say they’re very happy with the performance and lower cost of e-mail outsourcing. For example, Adecco cut its e-mail administrator staff in half to three people and repurposed much of th

We are yet to see the "push factor" from Enterprises on using Google Apps for Domains. Enterprises are concerned about infringing their privacy & confidential information. Also, big companies that pilot Google Apps are still in that phase, and not able to make a decision about rolling out across the company. The following are five reasons why I think Exchange Hosting is still better than Google Apps:

Trust – Exchange Hosting Providers have to go through various certifications before they can provide services. One such key certification is "Microsoft Exchange Service Provider License Agreement (SPLA)", if they don't have this SPLA, they are not authorized to sell hosted exchange services. There are many other certifications (e.g., SaaS etc) these providers usually go through which helps them build more & more credibility with utmost trust. So Exchange Hosting is more credible with strong SLA resulting 24×7 support, certifications & well controlled Partnership agreement with Microsoft (SPLA).Google's current support modeling is very poor and can hardly gain trust of the enterprises. SLA is available only for Google Premium Edition. The SMEs that use Standard Edition have to use it at their own risk and education institutes get the same treatment. So the enterprise which pilots Google Apps will remain in that phase for a longer period.
Less Risks – Due to stringent guidelines from Microsoft SPLA, the service provider needs to track downtime, provide monthly reports (or real-time status reports online), and automatically credit accounts for any months where the s

BURLINGTON, MA – July 9, 2007 – groupSPARK, a Microsoft Gold Certified Partner and the leading private label Software as a Service (SaaS) provider of hosted services including Microsoft Exchange Server 2007, announced today that it is now offering 24×7 private label tier-1 technical support for its resellers as an optional service. This service is immediately available to channel partners and resellers so that they can provide their customers with comprehensive technical support and simultaneously save money.

Resellers can take advantage of groupSPARK’s internal infrastructure, technical expertise and leadership in the private label Hosted Microsoft Exchange Server marketplace by outsourcing technical support for their customers as well. The company now provides 24×7 private label tier-1 technical support to resellers’ customers via phone or e-mail using the reseller’s name and branding. The customer will be unaware that their technical support is being provided by groupSPARK.

groupSPARK’s hosted SaaS offering includes Microsoft Exchange Server 2007, Windows SharePoint Services v3.0 and Dynamics CRM which can be completely private labeled and resold by partners as a part of their own product offerings saving them hundreds of thousands of dollars in development and operational costs. Because groupSPARK’s entire reseller solution is fully private labeled using its state-of-the-art Private Label Application Delivery platform (PLAD) and includes the reseller’s branding and design, the service provided by groupSPARK is completely transparent to the end user.

“Not only can gr

I heard this from CNN news just now – “more than 500, 000 iPhones have been sold since the launch on last Friday, June 29, 2007”. However, Microsoft Exchange ActiveSync support in iPhone is not yet confirmed, though it's likely going to happen anytime now. In the mean time, many hosting providers are jumping in to these rumors and started making "iPhone Plans" and ready to provide the wireless email service whenever Microsoft extends license through ActiveSync or IMAP in iPhone. Hosting Providers are likely to set the following pricing model – One Mailbox + ActiveSync/IMAP access with a one time setup fee.
According to Mossberg from Wall Street Journal "It can also handle corporate email using Microsoft’s Exchange system, if your IT department cooperates by enabling a setting on the server."
Is this setting ActiveSync or IMAP? If its going to be IMAP, not much excitement, because you will loose the core wireless email functionalities such as "push mail", calendar, contacts etc. Like any other email services, Microsoft Wireless Email will be just "pull email" with IMAP. As you see the picture below, iPhone can connect with popular email services such as Gmail, AOL, Yahoo, EarthLink etc. along with Microsoft Exchange except the fact that Yahoo provides the "push email" services to iPhone users.

Watch Mossberg's iPhone demo in Youtube as he has done nice review & testing on his iPhone.

If the customers are using MS Exchange, hosters will have hard time selling Wireless Email to iPhone customers with IMAP. Rumors stay there for a while – I guess there is no big deal fo

New York, NY– June 28, 2007 — Intermedia, the global leader in business email services, has announced that it will support Apple iPhone business email, when the highly anticipated mobile device is released on Friday. If and when Microsoft ActiveSync support becomes available on the device, Intermedia, the world leader in hosted Exchange, will sell one-mailbox Exchange accounts with ActiveSync included. This will allow iPhone users to get direct push, always-synced email on their new devices.

Intermedia's "iPhone plan" will include one mailbox for just $10.95 per month, plus ActiveSync access for $4.95 per month ($15.90 in total), with a one-time setup fee to get started. Users will get 500 MB of disk space per mailbox and access to the extensive features of Exchange 2007, such as calendars, contacts and the rich OWA 2007 Web mail, in addition to direct push email.

"We are excited by the launch of the iPhone," said Rurik Bradbury, VP marketing for Intermedia. "Combined with Intermedia email, it will give users a complete experience of multimedia, telephone and Internet as well as full direct push email once ActiveSync support is enabled."

Those interested in learning more about Intermedia's iPhone plan and receiving full details when the plan is available should visit http://www.intermedia.net/iPhone

Intermedia is a Microsoft Gold Certified partner, and companies looking for business email services know that Intermedia will provide unparalleled uptime, the absolute best in 24×7 support, as well as technical knowledge of the highest level.
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Hosted Microsoft Exchange Server customers of 123Together can now receive best-in-class live phone, e-mail or chat support any time they need it.

Burlington, MA, June 25, 2007 – 123Together.com, the leading provider of hosted enterprise-class messaging and collaboration solutions such as hosted Microsoft Exchange Server 2007, Windows SharePoint Services v3.0 and Dynamics CRM, announced today that it is now offering 24x7x365 live U.S.-based phone, email and live chat technical support for all customers.

For today’s workforce, working from 9am-5pm is no longer the norm. In order to keep pace with the need for anytime access of their Mission Critical e-mail, 123Together.com now offers 24x7x365 live, U.S.-based phone, email and live chat technical support. Customers may contact 123Together.com’s team of technical specialists by phone at 1-800-9-MS-EXCH, by visiting www.123Together.com and initiating a live chat, or by e-mail.

123Together.com’s hosted solution offers small and mid-size businesses the same messaging and collaboration tools as those used by Fortune 500 companies but without the significant expenses of hardware, software and additional IT personnel. Companies for whom the use of Microsoft Exchange Server was a challenge can now opt for 123Together.com’s hosted solution and tap into the full capabilities of Exchange Server such as 15GB mailboxes and anywhere anytime access to their email, calendar’s and contacts – whether from a mobile device such as a BlackBerry or from Microsoft Outlook or their web browser.

“We are the only hosted Microsoft Exchange provid