Comments on: Microsoft Launches Hosted Exchange Deals

By: Antonie Bloomin

Antonie Bloomin — Thu, 06 Nov 2008 17:24:00 +0000

We are using the hosted exchange from Microsoft’s reseller as well. The good thing is the availability is backed by 24×7 support. When we had an issue: we were able to call US number and get this resolved. i hope Microsoft Online has a comparable support structure at this low cost…

By: Damien Carlos

Damien Carlos — Mon, 22 Sep 2008 18:48:54 +0000

I agree that some products maybe the same, yet the service may be very different. This includes reliability, uptime and support staff. Some providers operate from home apartments… or lease premises from other bigger ones.

I therefore don’t quite agree that price is the most important factor. When I was using smaller guys or some bigger who had support in Russia or India - my email was constantly going down, Blackberry Activesync failed and had all kinds of issues.

Finally I found Exchange hosting provider 123Together.com and had no issues since. The only scheduled downtime they had i was promptly notified about in advance.
Their prices are from $9.99, yet I don’t mind paying $3 per month extra for piece of mind.

Javier

By: Cloud Computing Vs. Software as a Service (SaS) - What’s the Diff? | Creeva's World 2.0

Thu, 18 Sep 2008 16:14:18 +0000

[...] grade product it’s still a cloud computing application. When we move into things like Microsoft offering remote hosted MS Exchange packages, we are entering into SaS. SHARETHIS.addEntry({ title: “Cloud Computing Vs. Software as a Service [...]

By: Chris

Chris — Mon, 15 Sep 2008 14:40:15 +0000

This will be interesting to watch over time. We host Exchange, Sharepoint, BES and many many other SMB/ Enterprise applications. We are a MS Gold partner and now Microsoft is competing against it own partners. Not sure how I feel about that. We’re still cheaper and don’t oursource our tech support. We focus on the hand holding vs. MS does not.

By: Costa Taylor

Costa Taylor — Thu, 07 Aug 2008 21:31:44 +0000

Yes, we used a Microsoft reseller: http://www.groupspark.com to set up our small business accounts, to resell the tools - completely White Label.
I agree: the major benefit I see is a 24×7x365 support the claiming to offer. This frees us up from hiring support stuff for our customers needing Exchange Hosting, OWA, Sharepoint, CRM etc…

By: Damien Harkins

Damien Harkins — Thu, 07 Aug 2008 21:25:24 +0000

Yes, MS Hosted Exchange services is an interesting challenger of Google Apps, especially considering the support component available from Microsoft Sharepoint & Hosted Exchange resellers

By: Weekly Windows Mobile Roundup On July 12th 2008 | My Today Screen

Weekly Windows Mobile Roundup On July 12th 2008 | My Today Screen — Sun, 13 Jul 2008 02:01:10 +0000

[...] It seems that everybody wants to get in on the Exchange pie nowadays. Well that line seems to have come a full circle with Microsoft now offering hosted Exchange plans for users who want in. Starting at just $3 per user, they’ll get an Exchange mailbox with webmail access, sharepoint server access and the basic communication tools such as messenger. For $180 per user per year (which works out to $15 per month), they’ll get full hosted Exchange and Sharepoint, along with collaboration tools. Not a bad deal when you think about it. At this point, I’m not sure if this is just for business users or anyone can join in. Let’s hope it’s the latter since as this will be a really useful service for many. (via TechCrunch) [...]

By: Voice Your Opinion on Microsoft's New Pricing for Hosted Services - The Bamboo Team Blog

Wed, 09 Jul 2008 21:36:36 +0000

[...] Techcrunch: Microsoft Launches Hosted Exchange Deals [...]

By: My Own Pirate Radio » If it Smells Bad, Throw it Out

My Own Pirate Radio » If it Smells Bad, Throw it Out — Wed, 09 Jul 2008 18:42:43 +0000

[...] 4) Customer resistance to upgrades increases over time. "My developers want to skip version N+1. We have no problem waiting for N+2." "The sales team can’t afford to buy upgrades for all of our apps this year. We’ll just wait." "Our IT department takes 18 months to test your OS for bugs before rolling it out, so we only want to do that at most once every 3 years." This is real. This is the conversation Microsoft sales reps have with their big customers every time a new version of Office or Windows rolls out. It is the reason marketing teams argue about whether a release should be positioned as a "dot" release or a "major" one. It’s why Microsoft has been trying for years to move to a service-and-subscription model, where customer payments look like an annuity stream instead of once-every-few-years-big-bang. It is also the reason they are belatedly getting serious about running their apps in hosted server environments. [...]

By: SEO Weezy

SEO Weezy — Wed, 09 Jul 2008 14:56:43 +0000

I cant wait for the 2.0 firmware release date, i just wish that apple would have a set release date…

By: James.Random() : Perspective from the Web 2.0 crowd on Microsoft’s hosting announcements

Wed, 09 Jul 2008 14:36:57 +0000

[...] to compare to Google Apps but recognise the maturity of Exchange vs Google Mail for example. Worth a read through these comments as they are normally anti-Microsoft and help to see things without rose tinted spectacles. Filed [...]

By: Jose Fajardo

Jose Fajardo — Wed, 09 Jul 2008 01:10:00 +0000

Ryan how old are you? You can’t even compare enterprise mail to gmail.. or any microsoft enterprise app to google app! Once you’ve lived and worked with microsoft enterprise apps (MSCRM / Office / Sharepoint / even there business tools such as Biztalk etc etc) nothing comming out of Google even comes close to.. When Microsoft goes online they make a point of doing it the right way, good on them for taking there time to come to the market!

By: TechCrunch Japanese アーカイブ » マイクソフト、ホスティング版Exchangeを発表

TechCrunch Japanese アーカイブ » マイクソフト、ホスティング版Exchangeを発表 — Tue, 08 Jul 2008 23:36:33 +0000

[...] ［原文へ］ [...]

By: Nik Cubrilovic

Nik Cubrilovic — Tue, 08 Jul 2008 22:48:45 +0000

@Ryan, sorry dude but I agree with Your Daddy

By: Your Daddy

Your Daddy — Tue, 08 Jul 2008 21:11:07 +0000

@Ryan, you’re trippin bro…

By: Ryan Born

Ryan Born — Tue, 08 Jul 2008 21:07:53 +0000

it should be free for up to 100 or so accounts like google….this is not tempting….google’s solution and other open source aps are much better and did I mention, FREE….when will corporate america realize that excel is the only thing microsoft has left?

By: Your Daddy

Your Daddy — Tue, 08 Jul 2008 20:49:35 +0000

FYI: There is a OWA Plugin for FireFox that makes it look just like IE.

By: Doodool Tallah

Doodool Tallah — Tue, 08 Jul 2008 20:45:28 +0000

@27

I think you need a minimum of five (5) seats. I could be wrong though so check it out, but I think 5 is the magic number.

By: Alex Rosen

Alex Rosen — Tue, 08 Jul 2008 20:41:26 +0000

So if I have an iphone, can I buy a one user plan and use it to get push email when the new firmware comes out in a few days?

That would be much cheaper than mobileme.

By: Ken Berger

Ken Berger — Tue, 08 Jul 2008 20:22:19 +0000

For individuals and small businesses, this is a non-announcement. There are numerous hosted Exchange providers, some of which are really good and cheaper than what’s in this announcement. I recommend http://sherweb.com as an example. Although I recognize that there are plenty of businesses and individuals who won’t go with a brand they don’t know. And you can bet that this announcement is a response to MobileMe.

Love or hate MS, there still is no prouduct out (yet) w/ all the features of Exchange that are important to me, an email intensive person who carries many devices.

By: Ashutosh Kadakia

Ashutosh Kadakia — Tue, 08 Jul 2008 20:11:27 +0000

This is absolutely fantastic. I can’t wait to bring all my users over.

I currently use a combination of Google Apps and a hosted Exchange server from Intermedia.net. I have 25 accounts on Google Apps, and 3 on a hosted Exchange.

I didn’t want to shell out $12.95/user, for all my users that don’t use multiple computers or have blackberry’s, so those users were all using Google Apps.

At this price point, it’s worth bringing everyone over. I’m so utterly frustrated with the free version of Google Apps, and their ridiculously high false positive rate. I get over 4-5 false positives just in my own personal inbox — imagine what happens to my staff that probably never check their spam folder.

I just bought Microsoft stock after hearing this announcement.

By: Andrew

Andrew — Tue, 08 Jul 2008 19:57:54 +0000

Found BES support. Link won’t show on this comments section, just go to the MS website and search for “blackberry and hosted exchange online” It’s a PDF of the presentation from today’s conference.

By: Wayne Lambright

Wayne Lambright — Tue, 08 Jul 2008 19:53:49 +0000

What a great price, last time I check into this it was like $50 per user / per month.

By: Andrew

Andrew — Tue, 08 Jul 2008 19:52:49 +0000

I can’t find anything for BES support!!!

By: jack powers

jack powers — Tue, 08 Jul 2008 19:35:29 +0000

OWA is the best webmail system there is. I just hope they will offer this in Germany. $3 is like 1 € and some change.