Microsoft Hosted Exchange Buyer’s Guide
Introduction
Messaging lies at the heart of a business’ ability to communicate, to interact quickly and effectively with everyone from employees and suppliers to clients and prospects.
Yet supporting an on-premise messaging solution absorbs much of a business’ IT dollars. In addition to buying the software, you must expend resources on maintenance, implementation, upgrades, licensing, support and archiving. Downtime – whether scheduled or due to failure or disaster – costs money, disrupts business operations and creates customer dissatisfaction, especially in a world where the vast majority of users check their emails from home, from on the road and after-hours.
Comparing Costs
Although many decision-makers claim on-premise Exchange implementations are less expensive to deploy and operate than Microsoft Hosted Exchange, the opposite is often true. Just add up the dollars: A 10-person on-premise Exchange solution costs $389.78 vs. $27.00 per seat per month for a Hosted Exchange solution, for a total whopping savings of $362.78 or 93 percent, according to Osterman Research. At 100 users, on-premise costs $37.29 per seat each month compared with a hosted service’s cost of $12.25 for savings of $25.04 or 67 percent. With 1,000 users, on-site costs $20.72 for each seat every month vs. $9.85 for hosted for savings of $10.87 or 52 percent, Osterman Research finds.
It is not surprising then that even some large enterprises are migrating to Microsoft Hosted Exchange: GlaxoSmithKline, for example, is moving its 100,000 users to Hosted Exchange, the giant pharmaceutical company said in March 2009.
There are other savings, too. Because the cost-per-seat is fixed over the contract’s lifetime, your business has a predictable monthly outlay without the risk of unforeseen expenditures. If you support Exchange internally, you must take into account potential disruptive forces such as natural disasters, power outages and office relocations that can add unforeseen costs to your on-premise Exchange management budget.
As you add employees, you run the risk of maxing out your internal infrastructure, forcing you to expend dollars and hours buying and installing servers, storage and other infrastructure to support new hires. Of course, this adds more costs to your existing Exchange budget at a time when you would rather spend IT funds on using technology to solve business challenges.
Finding A Microsoft Hosted Exchange Partner
Having decided to use a Microsoft Hosted Exchange solution, it’s time to research the many providers that will vie for your business.
Like any relationship, you want a true and trustworthy partner with a history of success, of profitability and of adherence to its Service Level Agreements. Speak to existing customers, and ask them about performance, adherence to SLAs, speed of response and technical support. Ensure your list of candidates operates in the black, with money in the bank and a proven business model. In a world of mergers and acquisitions -as well as business closures – it’s important to find a partner with a positive track-record, one that will be around for the long-term as opposed to a start-up facing a steep learning curve, and financial and customer-service challenges.
ONIT Technology Solutions – includes a 99.999 percent uptime guarantee, equivalent to less than six minutes of downtime per year. Although some companies claim 100-percent uptime, this is unrealistic and generally is viewed as marketing-speak. To support its high-level uptime guarantee, we invest solely in technology from industry-leading vendors such as Cisco and Dell.
In addition to providing 24×7 access to Microsoft Hosted Exchange, your Hosted Exchange Provider should deliver email archiving; ensure continuity; encrypt emails; and protect you from spam, phishing, viruses and other malware. Make sure the solution encompasses mobile devices such as BlackBerries, cell phones and Personal Digital Assistants (PDAs).
Discuss how the service provider migrated other companies from an on-premise Exchange environment or how they worked with a company’s previous hosted Exchange provider. Were there any problems? Does the service provider offer customization? What other value-added services do they offer? For a list of questions to ask your prospective hosted Exchange provider, see the callout box.
ONIT Technology Solutions uses proprietary infrastructure technology that works with Microsoft Exchange to make it easy for businesses to set-up, manage and secure their email. During migration, we guide you through a migration process whose pace you control. Since the migration is conducted over the phone, you can ask questions in real-time. Many other providers use email or knowledge-based instructions for cookie-cutter guidance. WE developed proprietary tools to simplify, automate and streamline migration.
As well as the live migration support, we employ a slew of Microsoft- and RIM-certified Exchange support staff to provide you with complete access to Exchange experts. Many other service providers staff their support lines during regular business hours, even though many users access email at odd and off-hours.
It’s critical that your hosting partner has the resources you need to answer questions, whether during migration, day-to-day operations or in an emergency. All-too-often, hosting providers have a skeleton or non-existent support staff after-hours, often the time at which most problems arise as your end-users try to access Exchange while away from their office.
Conclusion
Just as you scrutinize the providers of your on-premise technology, dig deep into the claims your prospective hosted service providers make. Speaking to existing clients is an invaluable way to gauge providers’ veracity. Asking the hard questions now should create a true partnership that enables hosted Exchange services to live up to its promises.
You can find more information on this topic here:
20 Questions To Ask Your Prospective Hosted Exchange San Antonio Provider
