Squeeze >> Services >> Microsoft Online Services >> MS Online Exchange Example
An Online Example - Microsoft Exchange
Microsoft Exchange is a fabulous product that has been one of Microsoft’s best over the long haul and has proven itself to be highly reliable, robust and feature rich. However, Microsoft Exchange is a complicated product that requires continuous management and maintenance performed by someone with good messaging and Windows Server skills - there is more to it than meets the eye.
Comparison
So consider even in the smallest organization, with just 5 users all with mailboxes, all requiring calendaring, contacts, tasks etc, the cheapest way to enjoy the benefits of MS Exchange is probably to buy Small Business Server and a basic piece of hardware.
Now the cheapest server with Small Business Server 2008 costs around $3000 in the box, not including setup, backup and restore or anything else needed to run it successfully. Once it is in and all up and running, you then have the ongoing management costs, the upgrades, the electricity, etc.
Microsoft also provides Exchange via their Online Services and for around $40 per month you can get your 5 mailboxes, the exact same benefits and features but literally none of the other costs from purchasing to managing and maintaining.
You could enjoy the same service using the online edition for 6 years before it will cost you more than the initial outlay for hardware and software for your own internal version. Squeeze believes that this makes incredible economic sense for any small or medium business. In a business using Active Directory, Microsoft provide the tools to perform a directory synchronization with your hosted email directory so all users on your local systems are synchronized one way with the mailboxes on the server.
Availability
Many potential customers could be concerned with the availability of the email system - what if something goes wrong with the Microsoft servers. This is a legitimate concern but Microsoft guarantee 99.9% uptime through a service level agreement. For any business to deliver 99.9% uptime without a very generous operational budget is very difficult, if not impossible.
Clients
Once the service has been set up, your users can access email via Outlook 2007, Outlook Web Access, Windows Mobile and the Apple iPhone and this access can be provided anywhere using RPC over HTTPS even using the full Outlook client.
