Electronic mail, or e-mail, is at the heart of all the communication systems of today’s businesses. Surveys have shown that internet and e-mail services are considered by many small businesses to be more vital to their company than the telephone. Over 72 percent said that losing their website or mail application would cause serious damage to their business and an immediate financial loss. Eighty percent said that when choosing an Internet provider, their most important consideration was a guaranteed service and the provider’s response time in dealing with faults.

Business people want to be able to send e-mails from their desks or when they are on the move, allowing them to stay in touch with customers and colleagues. This means that it is very important to any business that its e-mail system is secure, robust and accessible. Implementing, managing, and supporting communication and messaging tools requires experience. For some businesses, this can represent a big strain on internal resources. Outsourcing the messaging solution can provide a number of benefits:

• Reduction in administration including licensing
• Internal IT resources can be concentrated on core business
• Capital is freed up, reducing risk for a small monthly fee
• Security expertise, the latest virus protection and spam filtering
• Enhanced backup and restore capabilities
• 24/7 support all year round
• Scalable and flexible solution, you pay for what you need
• Professional e-mail service with no hassles
• Large network with built-in redundancy
• Economy of scale gained from tapping into large infrastructure of provider

Hosted Exchange Email is a way for businesses to have all the messaging functionality that they need without the problems of the day-to-day administration. The system uses Microsoft Managed Exchange 2007 as the mail server, and customers typically use Microsoft Outlook as their email client. The system is not just about sending and receiving. E-mail users are also able to share contacts, folders and calendars. Microsoft Outlook is available for browser, mobile, and desktop access, meaning that staff can keep in touch no matter where they are. The inbox stays synchronized as the users always connect to the same exchange server.

Microsoft Exchange with Microsoft Outlook allows the user to:

• Access calendar management and scheduling tools
• Share personal lists and track project progress
• Keep contact information and personal address book
• Share files, assign permissions, get team feedback. Also provides 1GB folder space
• View attachments
• Use discussion views to group e-mail conversation threads

If customers do not use Microsoft Outlook, they can use MacMail, Entourage, or any IMAIL or POP desktop client. Mobile users can send or receive e-mail via any POP or IMAIL connection. They can synchronize their mailbox with Blackberry, iPhone or Windows Mobile devices. Outlook Web Access allows the user to receive mail notifications, calendar reminders, use public folders and global address lists via Internet Explorer 6. OWA light can be used with Firefox, Safari or older versions of Internet Explorer.

A managed exchange service offers peace of mind to customers who are assured that their e-mail system is always secure and backed up. Along with high reliability and performance comes exceptional support.

Companies can choose between two different levels of service – managed and dedicated. With a managed service, customers retain control over the administration of users’ messaging, but the responsibility for the administration of the system is taken over by another company. This solution suits companies that have limited IT resources. The Managed Exchange option features full integration with Microsoft Outlook for e-mail and collaboration. Nightly data backups, rapid recovery of lost data and a high-availability infrastructure provide a robust messaging solution.

The dedicated option is more suitable for larger companies. It provides the scalability and power of a dedicated server. The company’s own IT administrators retain full control over the messaging application and the user services. They are able to configure mailbox, attachment sizes and distribution lists. Data backup and storage size remain under the control of the in-house IT department. The Dedicated Exchange option provides the highest levels of collaboration, configurability and mobile service support.