Claire Broadley - Giacom ThinkCloud

Claire Broadley's Blog

Concerns About the Cloud

We’re all so used to using webmail now, and Hosted Exchange seems equally straightforward to many people. But some people understandably have their reservations, not least the technical support teams and IT departments who have to deal with the upheaval of a fundamental change to the way they work.

Here are three common worries that come up time and again, together with a few points that you may not have considered.

I’ll be putting my company’s email in the hands of another organisation. How is that a good idea?

OK, let’s be blunt. There are some technicians who shudder at the idea of handing over control to someone else and will do anything to prevent it. There can be lots of reasons for this; some valid, some not. Often, IT support departments have lots of pressures on them from other parts of a business, and they sometimes feel like they have to ‘defend’ their services to run them well.

When you have multiple companies taking care of different aspects of your IT provision, there are multiple support numbers to call, and you might feel like you lose sight of core issues. If you’re used to managing and monitoring things constantly, it might be quite alien to hand that over to someone else.

On the other hand, think about the time you’ll save. All those backups your IT support team won’t need to take. All those patches they won’t need to deploy. All those virus definitions they won’t need to update. Your service desk can spend more time serving people – after all, that is their primary function.

With Hosted Exchange, you benefit from economy of scale. The trade-off for the huge cost saving is that you have to loosen your grip on maintenance. You’ll still have an admin or control panel to oversee things day-to-day.

I won’t be able to tweak the service as much as I’d like, so it won’t work for us.

That’s true, you won’t. A shared service is more restricted, and you might not be able to customise everything you would if it were on your own server. Think of it like renting a car, as opposed to buying one: it’s a shorter commitment, and it will cost you less money. You sacrifice some customisation for a lower cost. Hosted Exchange isn’t for everyone, but you might be surprised at how capable it is.

Another company will be setting priorities for our incidents.

Yes, this is true, but why is that a problem? If you’re used to dropping everything every time your chief exec forgets his or her password, this isn’t going to be an easy transition for you (or them). But if you have an urgent problem, your request will be prioritised properly and dealt with quickly – no matter who it affects. Companies that provide HostedExchange 2010 to dozens of organisations are used to prioritising support calls and dealing with them effectively. In practice, you’ll probably find that problems are fixed quicker. Some issues will be reported and fixed before you even notice anything was wrong.

Do you have any more concerns about hosting email in the cloud? Post in the comments and let us know or call our support team for a chat today.

Tags: Cloud computing, Email Solutions, Exchange Hosting, Hosted Email, Hosted Exchange, hosted exchange 2010, the Cloud

This entry was posted on Friday, February 3rd, 2012 at 9:42 am and is filed under Claire Broadley. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Responses are currently closed, but you can trackback from your own site.

The Cloud is Definitely Not a Passing Fad

Last week my blog focused on the adoption of cloud computing among mainstream hardware manufacturers. Many companies are looking to sell cloud companion services alongside their devices, bringing in vital extra revenue as profit margins fall. But what about businesses who need those services? Are they spending more as a result?

Banks are reluctant to lend, and most people running a business are treading carefully. Even large businesses are looking to cut costs without cutting corners, and cautious CEOs don’t want to over-invest in – well, anything. It would be tempting to see the cloud as a temporary solution to the credit crunch; a way to escape the inevitable casualties of deep recession. However, cloud computing now has a strong enough foothold to rival and overtake traditional on-site IT services.

There are obviously cost barriers when switching to the cloud, but over time, most companies should find that the investment pays off – especially when they realise the cloud is here to stay, and sooner or later, there won’t be many reasons not to switch.

The fact that the cloud is scalable and flexible is a bonus to any business which needs to keep its eye on cash flow. Familiarity also helps. A couple of years ago, ‘cloud computing’ wouldn’t have meant much to anyone, and the idea of using Hosted Exchange for corporate email would have seemed like a very alien concept. In 2012, almost everyone with an iOS device knows that they can use an app called iCloud to sync data. Sharing large files is easy and quick with cloud storage. Widespread adoption brings trust in technology, particularly among less technically savvy users who would ordinarily be reluctant to store data on someone else’s server.

In August 2010, Chris Anderson and Michael Wolff wrote an article for Wired claiming the death of the web. They predicted the rise of the web or mobile app in place of traditional browsing. Eighteen months ago, that idea sounded much more far-fetched than it does today. Now consider the way we use our devices: in a few short years, we’ve done away with almost all moving parts. The optical CD or DVD drive is missing on the newest Ultrabooks, replaced by smaller, more expensive solid-state drives. The Google Chromebook comes with barely any software except the Google Chrome browser; the interaction the computer has with the cloud is the key to its existence. Devices are reaching a point where the cloud is the most essential component. There is an inter-dependence between hardware and the cloud that will certainly ensure its survival.

Just as the death of the web was almost unthinkable in August 2010, so the concept of inefficient local data storage will become alien to us within the next couple of years. The move towards the cloud frees up hardware manufacturers to make cheap devices and sell services on a subscription model; the small business owner can vary the level of their subscription from month-to-month. Services like Hosted Exchange 2010 are an efficient way to do business and are fast becoming the most essential components in our digital lives.

Tags: Cloud computing, Exchange Hosting, Hosted Exchange, hosted exchange 2010, Mobile Web, the Cloud

This entry was posted on Friday, January 27th, 2012 at 9:24 am and is filed under Claire Broadley. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Responses are currently closed, but you can trackback from your own site.

Why the Cloud Could Save Hardware Manufacturers in 2012

Considering the mountain of shiny new gadgets paraded at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, you’d be forgiven for thinking that the technology industry is booming. Well – in some ways, electronics manufacturers are doing reasonably well, but the gadgets aren’t entirely responsible for that.

Manufacturers of televisions and computers are suffering in a fiercely competitive market amid a global recession. The prices of common devices like televisions are falling fast, and new high-end products – such as super-slim laptops, dubbed ‘Ultrabooks’ – are not yet selling in sufficient numbers to make up the shortfall in revenue.

In the US, Amazon famously launched the Kindle Fire last year, reportedly selling it at a loss. Why would Amazon go to such great lengths to promote and market a device which actually loses them money?

The answer is in the cloud. As hardware prices go down, retailers are forced to squeeze their margins to the brink of survival. Software is everything. Not just any software: the kind of software that provides a vital service to the owner of a mobile device. Retailers are keener than ever to sell cloud services alongside their hardware to maximise their revenue. Apple recently launched iTunes Match, a cloud service to match stored mp3s on all iOS devices. The Amazon Kindle Fire has its own app store which cuts off access to competitor apps and services and favours Amazon’s own selection. Since the Kindle Fire has a very small amount of storage space, this forces buyers to use Amazon’s streaming services for their media. Over time, this remote storage and streaming model is likely to become commonplace.

The computer that guided Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin to the moon was famously no more powerful than a scientific calculator (although the software it ran was considerably more sophisticated). Since then, devices have become more and more powerful, smaller and smaller. The miniaturisation of technology has now reached a limitation: the size of our hands. Our hands wouldn’t be able to use devices if they were much smaller than they are now. Instead of continually compacting smartphones into smaller and smaller boxes, the emphasis now is on expanding the usability and capability of our smartphones while keeping them roughly the same size. Battery power is now more important than storage capacity for many people. A better battery provides a better experience: content can be stored hundreds or thousands of miles away and streamed for hours. The only question is this: can we cope without access to the cloud?

Analysts believe that the shift towards the cloud has been inevitable for some time. Michael Miller, a respected IT blogger, predicts that more and more of us will use tablet devices to access the internet over the next few years. The way we communicate is likely to be drastically different as a result. Hosted Exchange is likely to be more common in organisations where a wide range of devices need to access a mailbox resource from any location. Luckily, Hosted Exchange 2010 is cost-effective and flexible enough to make the cloud just as useful for email as it is for streaming and storage.

Tags: Cloud computing, Email Solutions, Exchange Hosting, Hosted Email, Hosted Exchange, hosted exchange 2010, Mobile Technology, Mobile Web

This entry was posted on Friday, January 20th, 2012 at 4:28 pm and is filed under Claire Broadley. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Responses are currently closed, but you can trackback from your own site.

The Death of E-mail?

Barely a week goes by when Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg isn’t in the news promoting a new feature on his social networking website. His most recent high-profile, controversial statement came in November last year. He branded email “slow and formal” – while promoting a revision to the Facebook messaging system, of course.

Hyperbole or fact? Is it time to move away from email altogether? We all have lots of options for communication, and Facebook is just one of them. Social media has broadened the scope of online interaction beyond anything Ray Tomlinson could ever have imagined when he first inserted an @ symbol in an email address in the early 1970s. Internet chatting has become more sophisticated with services like Twitter and Skype, and VOIP services are taking over from traditional telephony. Nowadays, Grandma and Granddad think nothing of video chatting with grandkids or tapping out messages on hand-held touchscreen devices.

Each type of online messaging has its purpose and place in our digital world. (Hopefully) nobody would apply for a job as a lawyer from the messaging system in their Facebook account. You also probably wouldn’t arrange a teleconference with a tweet. When Mark Zuckerberg claimed email was dying, he was wrong. Zuck’s rant against email was met by scepticism right across the board, and his subsequent ‘reinvention’ of messaging wasn’t quite the revolution he perhaps hoped. Why? People like to use systems they understand.

Email may have a formality, but it’s now just as normal as posting a letter in the mail.
Email is 40 years old and still going strong: it’s a powerful tool in business because it’s fast, it’s cheap and data can be archived and retrieved with ease. Email can be used to transmit documents and files as well as text, and in 2012 it’s more secure than it ever has been. Spam filtering is ever more sophisticated and virus monitoring is robust and reliable. Tools like Hosted Exchange allow us to free email from small, local servers and instead harness shared resources in powerful data centres. The BlackBerry was instrumental in bringing email from the desktop to the mobile device, and now almost all of us check our emails on smartphones, tablet PCs and even our games consoles thanks to cloud technology.

Facebook may handle as many as 4 billion chat, SMS and email messages a day between its 750 million users, but the use of email dwarfs it: in 2010, estimates placed the number of emails sent per day at around 300 billion. (OK, a vast majority of those are junk, but Facebook isn’t innocent in that regard either.) We have come a long way from the early days of ARPANET when emails were a few lines of ASCII on a green and black computer screen, but low cost, accessibility and speed of transmission will ensure email has a long life yet.

Tags: Email, Email System, Exchange Hosting, Hosted Email, Hosted Exchange, hosted exchange 2010

This entry was posted on Friday, January 13th, 2012 at 12:23 pm and is filed under Claire Broadley. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Responses are currently closed, but you can trackback from your own site.

What Changes Can you Expect from Hosted Exchange?

When it comes to IT services, people like to use things they’re familiar with. Changing systems, services and software could quickly make you the most unpopular IT manager on the block. There’s no doubt that sticking with tried-and-tested technologies can be easier and cheaper.

But sometimes there’s a definite need to move on to newer technology, or to make efficiency savings. When it’s time to upgrade that old dinosaur of an Exchange server that you’ve been running for a few years, you might decide to go down the cloud computing route and save yourself the hassle of updating and maintaining an on-site server once and for all. With faster connections, more mobile devices and a more technologically demanding world, it’s a good idea.

So what kind of changes will your staff see when you switch to Hosted Exchange?

If you’re already using Exchange 2010 at your place of work, chances are your users won’t see much of a difference between the in-house Exchange server and Hosted Exchange 2010. There will be some configuration tweaks here and there, but the average user won’t have sight of those.

Hosted Exchange 2010 is, by definition, pretty sophisticated. Any changes your users see are very likely to be positive. Because Exchange is such a widespread system, chances are that most (or all) of your staff will have used it before. That cuts down on the cost of training and support right from the off.

They’ll notice the benefits at first. It’s likely they’ll have a far bigger mailbox than before for one thing: many companies limit their employees to around 500MB of storage, but the cloud offers anything up to 25 Gb (or more). They won’t be frustrated and hassled by those annoying Exchange emails telling them their mailbox is almost full. (That’s always the last thing you want to read when you come back from a two-week holiday in the sun). More generous storage is sure to please anyone who emails large attachments or uses their email as a file storage space. They may notice some speed benefits when downloading files too, and they may notice new features if the version of Exchange they’re using is more up-to-date than your previous installation.

If your Exchange server is getting a little old and decrepit, Hosted Exchange will provide significant improvements in speed and reliability. That’s always something users like, and it will cut down on the amount of time your technical support staff spend on dealing with outages and all the related incidents that are opened when email goes down.

In fact, the additional layer of support provided by your Hosted Exchange provider will make a huge difference to your technical support team. If something goes wrong, they’ll have another team to help them resolve the problem. You may even see your a couple of them raise a smile when they realise they’ll have a bit less work to do.

Tags: Email Solutions, Exchange Hosting, exchange servers, Hosted Exchange, hosted exchange 2010, IT managers

This entry was posted on Friday, January 6th, 2012 at 11:09 am and is filed under Claire Broadley. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Responses are currently closed, but you can trackback from your own site.

New Year, New Prospects for IT Businesses

Some IT companies see cloud technology more like a storm brewing on the horizon. When it comes to offering the cloud as a modern alternative to on-site hardware, network cables and server racks, there’s a definite resistance among some companies who prefer the old-fashioned way of doing things. Many IT companies are much more comfortable selling boxes with flashing lights on than they are selling something ‘virtual’ such as Hosted Exchange.

But be honest. If your IT consultancy can’t recommend the cloud as a realistic alternative – particularly for start-ups – are you being honest with your customers? In many cases, you may not be giving them the best service. Any IT company that doesn’t offer cloud services is going to be negatively impacted as more companies move to technologies like Hosted Exchange for cost reasons. Clients want to move with the times, and this means IT resellers have to change and adapt too.

Cloud computing offers resellers a really unique opportunity to get involved in new technology with minimal commitment. Not only that, the cloud is on the brink of large-scale adoption, and it pays to get in quickly and keep your provisions up-to-date before your clients stray and start looking elsewhere. They will be much more likely to trust you – and give you valuable loyalty – if you can demonstrate that you’re offering all options and advising independently according to their needs.

OK, I admit that reselling someone else’s service might be a break away from the norm, and it may have some traditional techies shrinking back with horror! Offering cloud solutions is almost certainly a new experience for many IT companies – especially those who are used to having very tight control over the products and services they offer. But think of cloud services like reselling web hosting: it’s really easy to do. Reselling can offer a cost-effective way to get your foot in the door, and even if you only retain a handful of clients at first, the regular income could be enough to boost your turnover and keep those clients on board.

IT companies, take note: the potential for expanding your service catalogue is enormous. Unlike ‘traditional’ hardware installations, you don’t need to invest a lot of time in offering cloud provision. Set up is free, and the online reseller area is ready to go with very minimal configuration. All you really need to do is brand it, and that’s pretty standard stuff. There’s no need to try to work the billing and payments into your existing workflow, and you also don’t need to commit long-term; if the cloud really isn’t working out for your clients you don’t have the worry of trying to recruit even more very quickly. You can start with just one client and leave it at that. If you don’t recruit even one person for a product like Hosted Exchange 2010 (a situation I see as being fairly unlikely) you can cancel without penalty.

Resellers who provide free support will breathe a sigh of relief when they see how cloud support is handled. You provide all of the first line support, but the hosting company is always there to back you up. For small companies with limited tech support resources, it’s always handy to know that someone has got your back.

Tags: Email Solutions, Exchange Hosting, Hosted Email, Hosted Exchange, hosted exchange 2010, IT Resellers

This entry was posted on Friday, December 30th, 2011 at 10:30 am and is filed under Claire Broadley. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Responses are currently closed, but you can trackback from your own site.

Where in the World? – Hosting in the UK

When you’re looking for a Hosted Exchange provider, there are a few factors you’re going to need to consider. The most important is always going to be the cost, of course – and in January, the less outgoings we all have, the better we feel (and the happier our accountants will be).

But there’s another important factor you need to be aware of: the location of your Hosted Exchange provider. And not just for the obvious reasons that immediately spring to mind.

Of course, choosing a provider with a geographically closer network of data centres will offer you some speed benefits, and it could well be easier to figure out exactly where they are, what they offer and what kind of redundancy planning they have. But it’s not just about the technical side of things. You need to know about privacy laws, particularly how they differ between Europe and the US. If you choose a US provider for cloud services, you might be opening your confidential data up to scrutiny from third parties without realising it. With email, that means every message and every attachment your company ever sends or receives.

In the US, the Patriot Act opens up all data to the authorities – theoretically, anyway. It means that any data you hold that crosses continental boundaries and passes through the US could be subject to examination. If you’re concerned about client privacy, or you work on sensitive contracts or documents, it’s probably going to influence your decision pretty heavily when choosing a partner for Hosted Exchange.

The situation is so off-putting to European companies that many are refusing to spend their money with US information technology providers – so much so that experts are calling for an urgent revision to the Patriot Act to encourage more investment in the industry. While European clients avoid using US cloud providers, the industry growth there is going to be severely hampered as long as the Act is in place.

Don’t forget: the Patriot Act applies if your data crosses the US at any point in its journey, so your best bet is to pick a Hosted Exchange 2010 provider whose network and data centres are entirely within EU (or, even better, UK) boundaries. That way, you know exactly who is looking at your data – and who isn’t.

Of course, there’s also the basic, practical issue of working in the same timezone as the people who are hosting your email – and that obviously helps if you’re relying on them to set it up and support you while you get everything working. It’s especially important if something goes wrong with your Hosted Exchange 2010 service and you need to get hold of someone quickly. Many out-of-hours support teams are only tasked with basic fault logging outside working hours: if you have an issue at 8.55am on a Monday morning, you’ll be glad you chose a company who are also ready to work and assist you.

For now, if you want to stay secure and benefit from better speeds without compromising on client privacy, go for an EU Hosted Exchange service – at least until the Patriot Act is revised.

Tags: Email Solutions, Exchange Hosting, Hosted Email, Hosted Exchange, hosted exchange 2010, ISPs, Server Location, Service Providers

This entry was posted on Friday, December 23rd, 2011 at 10:34 am and is filed under Claire Broadley. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Responses are currently closed, but you can trackback from your own site.

Hosted Exchange and Media Coverage

At the beginning of this year, many non-techies wouldn’t have had a clue what cloud computing actually is. But times are changing. Thanks to new services such as Apple’s iCloud, the term ‘cloud’ is beginning to enter our everyday lingo. Cloud technology is becoming more a part of people’s home and work life: the very nature of data storage is shifting. Is there still a need for large, clunky terabyte hard drives, memory sticks and software that ships on DVDs? Which is more private: data transmitted from the UK to the US over a secure connection, or popping an encrypted flash drive in the mail? The answer may surprise you.

The cloud certainly isn’t without its pitfalls. First of all, you need a good internet connection to make use of the cloud, and you need an ISP or mobile phone provider that won’t penalise you for actually using it. That goes without saying. But the pitfalls are further reaching than that.

Two very large companies – Amazon and Blackberry – have fallen foul of cloud outages which threatened to make a serious dent in their reputation. Amazon’s EC2 outage mainly affected business customers, but the high-profile misconfiguration at Blackberry’s data centre caused ripples of discontent across social media, with high profile Blackberry users like Sir Alan Sugar publicly voicing their concern. Although Blackberry’s offering isn’t quite a cloud service, it’s effectively a private cloud, and the effect of the outage was catastrophic. Millions of users in dozens of countries went a good part of a week without full data service. The compounded effect of the outage and a poor response to its tabled device (plus some rather embarrassing behaviour by drunken sales execs on a plane) has caused Blackberry’s net income to tumble by 70% in 2011.

Privacy is also a concern, particular for those of us who work in the EU and use cloud services in the USA. Data which crosses the continental boundary into the States is subject to a completely different set of privacy laws, potentially opening up personal data in a way which wouldn’t be permitted in Europe. The cloud computing industry in the US is reportedly suffering for it, too.

Anyone approaching the cloud for email provision will have legitimate concerns, and rightly so. Cloud computing very literally opens up our communication: it’s available more readily on more devices, it’s more flexible and it means we can collaborate across large distances with ease. Care is needed to ensure you choose a provider that’s suitable for your business and complies with any non-disclosure agreements you may have in place.

With Hosted Exchange, for example, it’s important to insure that backups are regularly taken and mailboxes are mirrored in case of any disasters. The service needs to be scalable but secure, so there’s no chance of someone in your organisation exposing sensitive data to competitors, even if they leave their smartphone on a train by accident. It needs to be robust enough to handle a surge in requests, and a sophisticated load-balancing system is a must. And if you’re in the UK, you’d be highly advised to choose a Hosted Exchange 2010 solution from a British provider to ensure you’re never legally vulnerable.

Tags: Cloud computing, Hosted Exchange, hosted exchange 2010, Hosted Solution, Media, the Cloud

This entry was posted on Friday, December 16th, 2011 at 11:49 am and is filed under Claire Broadley. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Responses are currently closed, but you can trackback from your own site.

Hosted Exchange vs In House Exchange

Whether you’re setting up a new business or you’re looking to expand, sooner or later you’ll probably think about changing your email service. Ensuring you start off on the right foot will save you time, money and hassle in the long run, so it pays to consider all the options as soon as you feel you need to expand. Getting a comprehensive, easy-to-use and stable email platform up and running quickly will leave you free to do other things – and your staff will definitely thank you for it!

In the past, businesses would have to install their own servers as soon as they began to grow. That would have meant finding a company to come up with a solution, then employing a team to set up, test and implement the system and support it on an ongoing basis. Thanks to cloud computing – where software is remotely installed and accessed through a browser – there is a second choice. You can run the software off-site. And for many businesses, it’s a no-brainer.

Hosted Exchange 2010 gives you all the benefits of an in-house server but without any of the admin. The start-up costs are small and the ongoing costs are entirely predictable. Even better, the day-to-day maintenance is completely taken out of the equation.

Hosted Exchange is exactly the same as the industry-standard Exchange software you’ll have used at your place of work. The only difference is that you access it remotely over an internet connection, rather than from a computer on your premises. Your staff can sit down at a computer and be instantly familiar with the software. You don’t even need to pay for multiple licenses for Microsoft Outlook outright: it can be licensed from your Hosted Exchange provider for as little as £1 a month, ensuring that costs are kept to a minimum.

There’s also far less exposure to risk as your business ticks over. Any technical faults are simply not your problem: your provider will deal with them. (That’s definitely good news). Hosted solutions run in large data centres which are much less likely to ‘fall over’ than a server in the corner of the room, and there are redundancy measures hard-wired into the set-up to ensure your service is rarely, if ever, interrupted.

Hosted Exchange is comparable to a local Exchange solution in almost every way. All your devices can sync to the server, so you can use your iPad, your BlackBerry or any other mobile device to access your calendars, messages and tasks. You can also log in over the web if you need to. You’ll also probably find that you get far more storage space than you would if you hosted Exchange in-house: in some corporations, users are only permitted a 500Mb mailbox. The size of your mailbox can be anything up to 25GB when it’s hosted – all for just a few quid a month. Can you afford not to give it a go?

Tags: Business Email, Email Solutions, Hosted Email, Hosted Exchange, hosted exchange 2010, In House Exchange

This entry was posted on Friday, December 9th, 2011 at 5:10 pm and is filed under Claire Broadley. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Responses are currently closed, but you can trackback from your own site.

Small Business – Big Technology

Times are tough for small businesses, and if you’re just starting up, you’ll be acutely aware of how pricey it can be to get your IT provision sorted. Cautious banks are reluctant to lend to new companies anyway, so you need to keep your set-up costs as low as possible from day one. Not only that, you need to ensure that you’re not exposed to any unexpected costs as time goes on and your company grows (or your equipment inevitably needs to be replaced).

Hosted Exchange covers you on both counts. You’re not required to pay anything upfront or install any hardware of your own. You don’t even need to buy a Microsoft Outlook licence: if you don’t already have the software, just rent it for a low monthly fee along with your mailbox. And because your fee is fixed each month, you know exactly what you’re going to spend, so it’s great for budgeting. Keeping costs down is good for you and will keep your bank manager on your side!

There are other ways to cut costs, of course, but they’re not always advisable. If you skimp on your spending when you set up your own Exchange server, you’ll probably have to make do with second-hand equipment, or equipment that’s seen better days. To be honest, it rarely makes sense to invest in expensive kit that’s slipped out of its guarantee period, especially when it’s hosting something business-critical like your corporate email.

You could also go for an alternative system. If you decided to use something other than Exchange, you may save money short-term, but you’re risking being out of step with your colleagues and clients. You’ll probably have to invest time and money in training employees to use the alternative software you need to use, and the fact that your system isn’t compatible with other people’s will really become a problem when it comes to sharing appointments and files, or using mobile apps. Don’t forget that few competing email providers are as well equipped to cope in a demanding business environment as Exchange server is: it’s what it was built for!

Saving money sounds stressful, right? You’ll be pleased to know there’s actually no need to cut any corners or make any compromises just to save a few quid here and there. Consider Hosted Exchange 2010 instead: OK, it might be very inexpensive, but that doesn’t mean you’re missing out on anything. You save wads of cash by hosting your email in the cloud, but the service you get is precisely the same as someone who pays to set up their own gear on-site. It’s fully featured, flexible and far easier to manage (both practically and financially) as your company grows.

There are other benefits too. Large organisations can afford to pay technical support staff to do their donkeywork – but with a Hosted Exchange plan, you don’t have to worry about forking out for even more techies. Cloud technology allows you to have the exact same services that a large enterprise enjoys at very minimal cost.

Tags: Giacom, Hosted Exchange, hosted exchange 2010, Medium Businesses, Small Businesses, SMEs, ThinkCloud, ThinkCloud platform

This entry was posted on Friday, December 2nd, 2011 at 4:59 pm and is filed under Claire Broadley. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Responses are currently closed, but you can trackback from your own site.

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