Microsoft Outlook-Exchange is the best corporate email software, but it is expensive to buy and run. Intermedia's 'hosted Exchange' gives you all its benefits – without the high cost:
Cost is the major reason why hosted Exchange is rapidly growing in popularity.
Upfront costs are several thousand dollars for even the most basic setup, putting in-house Exchange beyond the reach of smaller businesses.
Ongoing costs for in-house Exchange are also high. Either companies need to hire IT staff or pay consultants to fix each problem, adding thousands more dollars in annual costs.
In-house Exchange
Hosted Exchange from Intermedia
Servers
All items must be purchased. Total cost for a small installation = Thousands of dollars
All items included as standard. Total cost for a small installation = $11.95/month for each user
Quality physical environment and cooling, uninterruptible power
Reliability of Hosted Exchange
Having email and collaboration that always works is now essential to doing business - and downtime is unacceptable.
In-house Exchange servers - usually in a basement or closet not designed for sensitive IT equipment - cannot match the reliability of hosted Outlook/Exchange.
Hosted Outlook/Exchange companies like Intermedia manage servers in large purpose-built datacenters with backup power, air conditioning and Internet connections. Below are the main threats to your email system:
In-house Exchange
Hosted Exchange from Intermedia
Servers
One server - all email depends on this.
Cluster of servers - if one stops working, the others take over
Data storage
One or two hard disk drives - all email depends on these
Large cluster of drives which automatically share workload if one fails
Low-quality environment, power, air conditioning systems
Tier-4 datacenter (as used by Google and Yahoo!)
Features of Hosted Exchange
Exchange is great because you can expand it with add-on features. However, this is difficult in practice with an in-house system, as each feature needs to be installed from scratch.
With hosted Exchange, all features are already installed and ready to 'turn on' if you wish to use them. Below are features you may wish to add:
In-house Exchange
Hosted Exchange from Intermedia
Wireless email Get your email and data on devices like a BlackBerry or Treo
Purchase separate (expensive) servers and software licenses, install them manually
Add instantly through online control panel
Archiving Create a backup of your emails for compliance or security purposes
Either a time-intensive in-house effort or another external service to manage
Add instantly
Extra disk space Expand storage with your business
Purchase and install additional disk drives
Add instantly
Advanced anti-spam Sophisticated blocking of spam to keep employees productive
Additional costs for software and maintenance
Add instantly
Anti-virus Reduce the risk of damage to your files and IT infrastructure
Additional costs for software and maintenance
Included as standard
Fax via Email Let employees receive faxes anywhere they go, right in their email inbox
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