Intermedia: trusted Microsoft Exchange Hosting solutions

Considering Exchange email in the cloud?

Compare Microsoft Office 365 and Google Apps to Intermedia's Office in the Cloud

Intermedia and Office 365 both provide Exchange email and Microsoft Office functionality. Google Apps also provides email and productivity tools, though Gartner Research called them “lackluster”. The best way to compare providers is to look beyond features to support, migration, reliability, and plan flexibility. Because that’s where you’ll see that Office in the Cloud stands alone.

What is Intermedia’s Office in the Cloud?

Office in the Cloud enables you to communicate, collaborate, manage content and deploy enterprise-grade application infrastructure on par with any big business. Each service is protected by enterprise-grade security and designed for mobility. And they're all fully integrated to make both users and administrators more efficient.

How does Office in the Cloud compare?

Office 365

With three broad points of value (Exchange/Office functionality, mobility, and easy administration), Office 365 is good for businesses that don’t require service flexibility or deep support.

vs		Intermedia

Intermedia matches Office 365’s functionality, mobility and ease of administration—while adding free migration, 24/7 support, more service flexibility and better reliability. It’s better for businesses who seek a solution that’s tailored to their needs.

Google Apps

Google Apps is good for very small businesses that don’t have established processes and don’t need business-grade capabilities.

vs		Intermedia

Intermedia is better for businesses who don’t want to require their employees to adapt to the way Google thinks they should do business.

The following tables offer a deep side-by-side comparisons of Office in the Cloud vs. Office 365 and Google Apps. Once you’re ready to choose Intermedia—or if you need more detail about particular points of differentiation— don’t hesitate to contact us at +1.800.379.7729 or sales@intermedia.net.

Migration and support

Intermedia hosted Exchange

Office 365

Google Apps

Ongoing support

Included

Free 24/7 phone and email support

  • Phones answered in 60 seconds
  • Emails answered in 1 hour

Not supported

Limited phone support

  • Small business plans offer no phone support
  • Midsize Business plan offers limited phone support
  • E plans offer 24/7 phone support for “critical needs”
  • Customers are pushed to self-help support

Not supported

No guarantees for hold times

  • Customers are pushed to self-help support
  • 24/7 phone support is available, but not at Intermedia’s service levels

Migration to the service

Included

Free migration performed by our Cloud Concierge team

Not supported

No migration services

  • Customers must do it themselves or hire a third party
  • Microsoft does not certify 3rd party migration partners
  • It's much harder to avoid costs, time delays and downtime

Not supported

No migration services

  • Customers must do it themselves or hire a third party
  • It's much harder to avoid costs, time delays and downtime

Migration between plans

Included

Free, seamless migration between plans

Not supported

Must perform full migration to move between plans

  • Moving is as complicated as switching providers

Not applicable

N/A

  • Google only offers one plan

Admin features

Intermedia hosted Exchange

Office 365

Google Apps

Centralized administration

Included

Offers granular control in HostPilot, our centralized control panel

Included

Offers centralized control

Partially supported

Limited control as compared to HostPilot

Active Directory integration

Included

Active Directory integration through UserPilot

Not supported

Active Directory integration available (except for Small Biz plan)

Not supported

No Active Directory integration

Plan Flexibility

Intermedia hosted Exchange

Office 365

Google Apps

Plans allow mix-and-match of services

Included

Can mix-and-match services for specific users

  • Example: certain users can be given Email Archiving

Not supported

For Small and Midsize, must choose one plan for entire company

  • You’re forced to either over- provision all users, under- provision power users, or go with Enterprise plans

    Included

    Can mix-and-match services for specific users

    Plans allow mix-and-match of platforms

    Included

    Can mix-and-match platforms for specific users

    • Example: factory workers on POP or IMAP, knowledge workers on Exchange

    Not supported

    For small and midsize, must choose one plan for entire company

    • You’re forced to either over- provision all users, under- provision power users, or go with Enterprise plans
    • Only E plans can add low-cost “Kiosk” plans, similar to our POP/IMAP

    Not supported

    Must put all users on full plan

    • Google has no plan similar to our POP/IMAP account plans

    Plans adjust to accommodate customer growth

    Included

    Plans are NOT limited based on number of users

    Partially supported

    Plans are constrained based on number of users

    • Customers cannot exceed plan cap—they MUST upgrade their plan as their business grows
    • This requires a full migration, which is as complicated as switching providers
    • Customer can’t use control panel to remove purchased licenses—they must call Microsoft
    • Small biz: 25 users / Midsize: 300 users (no cap for Enterprise)

    Not applicable

    N/A

    • Google Apps only offers one plan

    Services and features

    Intermedia hosted Exchange

    Office 365

    Google Apps

    Exchange feature set

    Included

    Every plan offers full Exchange features

    Not supported

    Small business plans offer limited Exchange feature sets

    • Deleted/limited options include: Company contacts, public folders, resource mailboxes, journaling, data loss prevention, OWA policies, external calendar sharing, message tracking, email forwarding, disclaimer, compliant archiving, ActiveSync remote wipe, Blackberry remote wipe, and more…

    Not applicable

    N/A

    • Google Apps is not an Exchange-based service

    User experience

    Included

    Familiar Outlook user interface

    Included

    Familiar Outlook user interface

    Not supported

    Users must learn a new interface

    Message size limit

    Included

    50 MB message size limit

    Not supported

    25 MB message limit

    Partially supported

    25 MB message limit

    Mailbox size limit

    Included

    Unlimited mailbox size limit on most plans

    • Basic Plan limit: 25 GB, pooled across users

    Included

    25 GB max per mailbox

    • Cannot buy additional storage
    • There is no pooling of storage

    Partially supported

    25 GB max per mailbox

    • Cannot buy additional storage
    • There is no pooling of storage

    Office 2013 rent vs. own

    Included

    Own Office 2013 software

    • Option to make simple monthly payments for a specific period of time
    • Does not require a lump-sum payment

    Included

    Rent your software

    • No ownership options, no matter how much you pay beyond the value of the software
    • Pay every day, forever
    • Access to Office 2013 is blocked when you leave Office 365

    Partially supported

    N/A

    • Google Apps offers proprietary productivity software that lacks the sophistication of Office 2013

    Integrated file sync and share

    Included

    Every account includes SecuriSync

    • Business-grade cloud based file collaboration service
    • Better security, reliability and support

    Partially Supported

    SkyDrive Pro

    • Online file storage

    Partially Supported

    Google Drive

    • Consumer grade file storage

    Broader integrated portfolio

    Partially supported

    Intermedia integrates VoIP and application infrastructure services

    • This includes Hosted PBX, Cloud Server, conference calling, Compliant Archiving, and more

    check-green

    Limited voice or application infrastructure services

    • Successful Office 365 integration with VoIP and a PBX system requires 3rd party voice services

    cross-red

    Google does integrate VoIP and offers cloud server platforms

    Lync persistent/group chat limitation

    Included

    Intermedia allows persistent/group chat

    Not supported

    No Office 365 plan allows persistent/group chat

    Not supported

    N/A

    Data protection and reliability

    Intermedia hosted Exchange

    Office 365

    Google Apps

    Data protection

    Included

    You can select your datacenter(s)

    • Intermedia lets you locate your data nearest to your users to minimize latency
    • Your data never leaves the US

    Not supported

    No control over/visibility into datacenter locations

    • Office 365 explicitly maintains the caveat that they can move your data “outside the primary storage region” (such as China)
    • More info: Read the Microsoft Office 365 Terms of Service

    Not applicable

    No control over/visibility into datacenter locations

    • Google explicitly maintains that they can house your communications data in datacenters around the world, including their datacenter in Hong Kong
    • More info: Read the Google Apps Terms of Service, section 1.1

    Reliability

    Included

    99.999% financially backed SLA

    Included

    99.9% SLA—and has already had outages

    • "Office 365 outages due to ‘routine maintenance’” — Windows IT Pro

    Not supported

    99.9% SLA—and has already had outages

    • “’Disruption’ Hits Google Apps” — Forbes

    Data privacy

    Included

    Does not serve ads against your email content

    Included

    Does not serve ads against your email content

    Partially supported

    Mines your email content to serve you ads

    • “We use the information we collect from all of our services to … offer you tailored content – like giving you more relevant search results and ads.” —Google’s privacy policy
    • “The Google Privacy Policies are herby incorporated by reference into this Agreement.” —Google Apps Agreement

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