MSExchange Editor

If your organization (especially small & medium business) decides to establish a messaging & collaboration platform using MS Exchange, rethink before implementing your in-house MS Exchange system. There are a lot more benefits using Hosted Exchange, this below table may not be an elaborate one but includes some of my thoughts which could be your key concerns related to this topic.

In-House Exchange

Hosted Exchange

Huge Initial Investment to start, e.g. buy IT resources starting from hardware, software, recruit expertise, engage contractors & project management team etc.
Nominal Fee to start. Most of the time, in a few minutes with small startup fee.

Ongoing expense & increased maintenance cost is a burden. Budgeting is always required with complex financial planning & unclear ballpark
Easy prediction of budget with clear roadmaps on Technology upgrades.

It can drag deployment projects due to various reasons, e.g. inefficient project management team, unskilled technical personnel on the field & lack of key management personnel
Set of predefined solutions makes life easier. For example, with Shared Server option, you can set up basic email functionality in a few minutes time. For Dedicated Sever, takes perhaps a couple of days to a week before setting up the first mailbox.

It's always pain in the neck to recruit the subject matter experts in AD, Exchange, SharePoint and other related messaging cross functional skills, especially for small & medium business. Even if you have a specialized person, they might end up doing multi tasking

Ravi Agarwal, the CEO of groupSPARK, will speak at LT PACT 2007 a Conference that brings together Hosting Industry Professionals. Held at Caesars Palace in Las Vegas from June 20-22 Mr. Agarwal will participate in the “SaaS and Your Profit Future” & “Solution Integration and SaaS” discussions panels.

BURLINGTON, MA – June 18, 2007 – groupSPARK, a Microsoft Gold Certified Partner and the leading Software as a Service (SaaS) provider of private label services including Microsoft Exchange Server 2007, Dynamics CRM and Windows SharePoint Services v3.0 announced today that groupSPARK chief executive officer, Ravi Agarwal, will be speaking at LT PACT 2007.

LT PACT 2007 will be held at Caesars Palace in Las Vegas, Nevada from June 20-22, 2007. The event brings together hosting industry professionals including customers, partners and the media to gain insight into hosting’s explosive growth and how to increase revenue with improved business practices. Attendees will also be able to network with industry leaders and can interact with the latest products in technology workshops.

Ravi Agarwal, groupSPARK chief executive officer, will participate in panel discussions entitled SaaS and Your Profit Future & Solution Integration and SaaS. These panels will focus on how companies can profit from SaaS services and what products and services are leaders in SaaS offerings. The discussions will also instruct companies on what to be aware of and what questions to ask when determining whether or not to deploy outsourced services and what types of companies are best suited for hosted

HostingCon is world's largest event Hosted industry – a venue where hosted industry professionals empower themselves in the related technology. HostingCon is a must attend event, If you are in the Hosted Exchange, SaaS (software as a service), web hosting and any related hosting services industry. Of course, it's a great place for networking with industry professionals, subject matter expert & business partners too. You can see world's leading Hosted Exchange players are in the booth for trade show and renowned industry experts are speaking during the conference at various hosting related topics. They are discussing about related technologies, Hosted Exchange, Microsoft new HMC platforms, business opportunities for aspiring entrepreneurs in the Hosted Exchange and tips on marketing this services. Here is the registration link for the event.

Do you want to know who all are exhibiting at the event? Visit here. For those of you are interested to know more about Microsoft's HMC platforms, you may step in to Microsoft's booth#309. During this event, we hope to have an exiting announcements & offerings from Microsoft about their products and solutions for its customers and partners – btw, Microsoft is a Platinum Sponsor for this HostingCon along with FastServers.Net & cPanel. As we observed, 2007 is yet another great year for Microsoft with launch of Silverlight* & enhancement in Microsoft Expression Studio*. Watch out for demos on these products as well as Internet Information Server 7.0 (IIS7.0), SQL 2005 & Windows 2008

For those who would like to becom

In the previous post I discussed why information checks are important. Here is a comment worth mentioning here from Maurene about my information check posting. She says,

"Under "What is your core business," you say "… who are solely operating and managing Microsoft Exchange and related technologies… " Many providers may host Exchange along with their own messaging service (USA.net comes to mind). IBMGS provides outsourcing for both Exchange and Domino. It's the word "solely" that I'd question — the decision should be made as a reflection on the quality of the provider's Microsoft expertise — independent of what else it may be hosting."

Thanks to Maurene for correcting, but I was kind of Microsoft biased when I wrote this post. 🙂 Let's continue with the Infrastructure side. Below are some of the key questions in my mind and I will continue to write a couple of more posts on the same topic soon.

1. What kind of complimentary services do you provide – for example, mobility, VoIP, security, archiving?

I believe some of the services should be complimentary such as mobility, faxing via email, etc… You can ask about more like VoIP, archiving, etc.

Mobility – every organization needs it. Wireless email gives your staff always-synchronized, anytime-access to email and other data such as calendar, contacts, docs, SharePoint etc. Ensure the hoster has better device coverage by supporting all popular Smartphone and PDAs. The hoster should be able to deploy and maintain the entire service from their data center which includes all necessary updates and patches. Blackberry, Win

BURLINGTON, MA – June 4, 2007 – groupSPARK, a Microsoft Gold Certified Partner and the leading Software as a Service (SaaS) provider of private label services including Microsoft Exchange Server, announced today that it is now offering private label Hosted Microsoft Exchange Server 2007, which provides significant upgrades to the industry-leading platform for e-mail, mobility and collaboration. This private label Hosted Exchange Server 2007 is immediately available to channel partners and resellers to help meet the unique messaging needs of their customers.

groupSPARK is the first provider to bring private label Hosted Exchange Server 2007 to market using the Microsoft Solution for Hosted Messaging and Collaboration (HMC) Version 4.0 – the only platform that Microsoft has designed, tested and validated for Exchange Server 2007 hosting.

Benefits of Private Label Hosted Exchange.
According to a recent survey of the hosted services market by Osterman Research, the market for Hosted Microsoft Exchange Server will grow from its current base of 1.4 million mailboxes to over 7 million mailboxes by 2009. This growth represents over $600 million in new revenues. In order to get started in the SaaS market, an Exchange hosting provider needs to spend between $250,000 – $500,000 in capital expenses for servers, enterprise-grade SAN, software and systems as well $200,000 on an ongoing basis.(1)

“With the substantial growth in demand for collaborative messaging, more and more service providers are interested in offering Hosted Microsoft Exchange Server 2007,” said John Zanni, directo

USA.NET, a message service hosting provider, saw the quality of its message services threatened by a jump in image-based spam in late 2006. Symantec analysts developed new tools and techniques for an antispam solution that more than quadrupled the catch rate for image-based spam. This virtu­ally eliminated it from USA.NET customer mailboxes, ending complaint calls from customers about spam, and helping to reduce the processing and storage burden from image based spam by as much as 95 percent. Download an ESG Lab Review white paper on Symantec Brightmail AntiSpam.

Just Press “Send”

Available, secure, cost-effective email is a price of entry for doing business today. USA.NET, a global electronic messaging service provider, fills this need so well it is the lead­ing exclusively-focused hosted email provider in the United States. The company serves over 1,300 corporate customers including such industry leaders as United Airlines and Farmers Insurance.

One reason for its broad customer base is quality of service. USA.NET has been named the 2006 “Top Player” in the hosted email provider space by The Radicati Group, Inc. It is also SAS 70 Type II audited, a Microsoft Gold Partner, a member of the Microsoft Technology Adoption Program for Exchange 2007, and winner of the 2006 Microsoft Excellence Award for Hosting Solutions.

Dan Wills, USA.NET’s vice president operations, explains the company’s value propo­sition: “Our Hosted Microsoft Exchange and CMS email solutions provide reliability, security, and scalability backed by a commitment to operational excellence. Since our solu

Companies with 250+ employees are able to roll out Hosted Microsoft Exchange Server 2007 without new investments in infrastructure and training, no downtime and fast, customized migration process.

Burlington, MA, May 22, 2007 – 123Together.com, the leading provider of hosted enterprise-class messaging and collaboration solutions such as Hosted Microsoft Exchange Server 2007 and Hosted Windows SharePoint Services v3.0, has recently rolled out additional automation tools which address the needs of mid-market companies, enabling them to easily utilize the latest e-mail and collaboration technology in a hosted manner.

Medium-sized businesses are struggling to fulfill the growing storage and technology needs of their users. In-house IT management has become extremely difficult because of the high penetration of ever-changing two-way smart phones, user demands for larger mailboxes and new products like Microsoft Exchange Server 2007 – which requires new 64-bit hardware and features a completely redesigned management interface.

The tools and processes that 123Together.com has developed provide a turnkey alternative. “Our exclusive suite of tools makes the lives of all IT professionals easier when managing and provisioning Exchange Server in a hosted environment,” said Gagan Prakash, Chief Operating Officer of 123Together.com. “Typically, mid-sized companies have limited resources making growing, maintaining and monitoring systems, software, networking and storage gear a significant challenge and an impediment to future growth. Our hosted platform allows companies to easily sc

CUPERTINO, Calif. – May 8, 2007 – Symantec Corp. (Nasdaq: SYMC) today announced that global e-mail service provider USA.NET is using Symantec Brightmail AntiSpam to significantly improve the detection and blocking of unsolicited e-mail messages, delivering more reliable e-mail services to its customers. As part of USA.NET’s multi-layer antispam approach, Symantec has helped the company achieve a fourfold improvement in the catch rate of image-based spam. Symantec has also helped enhance USA.NET’s protection from spam-borne threats, including viruses, spyware and phishing attempts, minimizing spam-related productivity loss for its customers and reducing the burden on its own e-mail infrastructure. Based in Colorado, USA.NET is the trusted provider of mission critical e-mail services to more than 1,300 corporate customers in more than 120 countries. In addition to offering several levels of hosted Microsoft Exchange and Commercial Messaging Services (CMS), the company provides customers with spam and virus protection, multiple layers of security such as Transport Layer Security (TLS) encryption, mobility, and a 99.9 percent service level agreement for guaranteed uptime.“Blocking spam and the potentially serious threats associated with spam-borne viruses are very important to USA.NET and our customers,” said Dan Wills, vice president of operations, USA.NET. “Symantec is instrumental in virtually eliminating spam, which enables us to focus on our mission of delivering high-quality, reliable e-mail services.”

Reducing the Threat of Image-Based Spam
A Symantec customer since

BURLINGTON, Mass. – May 14, 2007 – groupSPARK, a Microsoft Gold Certified Partner and leading Private Label Microsoft Exchange Hosting provider, announced today that groupSPARK chief executive officer, Ravi Agarwal, will be speaking at ISPCON Spring Internet industry conference and exhibition.

ISPCON Spring will be held at the Rosen Centre Hotel in Orlando, Florida from May 23-25, 2007. The event brings together 2500+ wired and wireless ISPs, CLECs, webhosts, VoIP providers and other Internet industry professionals to discuss all facets of Internet businesses. ISPCON will shine the spotlight on the ‘how’ behind the best technologies and business opportunities of the Internet industry. Attendees will be able to visit with groupSPARK representatives in booth 414 to discuss Private Label Exchange Hosting services.

Ravi Agarwal, groupSPARK chief executive officer, will participate in a panel discussion Strategies for Growing Your Hosted Business Messaging Service. This panel discussion will focus on how consumer ISPs can broaden customer reach and create new revenue streams by addressing critical needs such as messaging within the enterprise segment. The discussion will also include challenges faced by businesses in keeping pace with security, legislation and eDiscovery demands on email, the types of services that comprise an attractive hosted messaging suite, and practical first steps.

Ravi Agarwal, chief executive officer of groupSPARK states that he will discuss “how companies can take advantage of the explosive growth in Microsoft Exchange and provide a high-value, p

Explosive growth in the Hosted exchange industry shows the strong demand and trend among customers (including enterprise and large corporations) for Hosted Exchange services. The challenge here for the organization is in choosing the right partner for their Hosted Exchange Service needs. Sometimes it’s confusing as there are many web hosting companies, data center firms and sometimes telecom vendors beginning to offer Microsoft hosted exchange services. I am in the initial stage of preparing a guide to help you get clarity in this field. These are the basic issues you must take into account when choosing your service provider in Hosted exchange. I will keep working on this topic to come up with a complete guide.

Let’s start with company Information check:

What is your core business?

This can be one of the first questions in the list to your potential hosting service providers, since this gives more clarity during your initial phase of short listing the Hosting Vendors. My suggestion is to look for companies who are solely operating and managing Microsoft Exchange and related technologies – I mean “A core Hosted Exchange Provider”, here is the list of Microsoft listed Hosted Exchange providers.

How many years of experience do you have in Hosted Exchange services?

If they say "10 years or so in the business", then your very next question can be "Was it specifically in 'Exchange Hosted environments'?". Keep asking this until you get clear answer. The reason for emphasizing this question is due to many factors, such as that Microsoft Exchange server is a sophisticated &