Everyone Loves Good Old Email
The thought of modern business without
email
is, well, absurd. Email is axiomatic for
today’s companies, a necessary, (although not
sufficient anymore) condition for corporate
success. One of the first things a company has
to do when getting off the ground is to set up
custom email.
There are certain parameters within which
this email has to operate, which can be
described as the standard setup at most
companies, especially smaller ones (though not
all). These are a
Windows Operating System,
Microsoft Outlook & Ou tlook Express
for desktop mail access,
MS Office
for file management etc.
Besides this, the current need for dynamism
and flexibility has put certain new demands on
company email. These are – the ability to
access company mail over the internet (webmail),
mobile device access, and basic integrated collaboration
functionality like
shared address books,
shared contacts,
shared calendars,
shared folders for
information sharing etc.
MS Exchange - The "Classical" Solution
Microsoft, the behemoth of software,
recognized this universal need of companies
during early days, & created
Microsoft Exchange, an email messaging and basic collaboration
software, which has since gone through many
revisions, the most recent avatars being
Exchange 2003 & 2007.
MS Exchange is basically
email server software, i.e., a system through which you can set up
and receive email for your company, and relay
it to your employees’ computers. Exchange is
the backend "heart" of messaging in the
company, while the front end software, through
which employees actually access mail,
contacts, calendars and tasks is
Microsoft Outlook or
Microsoft Outlook Express
(slightly less used).
The basic functionalities provided by
Exchange are:
Business Email
– Administrators can setup a dedicated email
address for their company (@yourcompany.com),
which users can receive and send from their
local email client, mostly Outlook.
Protection
– Considering the 90 million spam messages
that go around the world every day, the
widespread concern about spam is
understandable. Exchange has inbuilt security
which protects your systems from infiltration
by
viruses
and
spam.
Shared Contacts
– Employees can create and organize contact
lists in Outlook and further share contacts by
sharing personal lists or creating group
contact lists which all members of a team can
access.
Shared Calendars
– This is a tool which helps manage personal &
group schedules. Calendars can be created for
individuals, or shared calendars can be
created for teams and departments.
Shared Tasks
– This helps people manage projects and
activities. People can maintain to-do lists of
assigned tasks, personal tasks, and tasks
further assigned to others. Shared tasks help
every person involved in a group activity have
a common view.
Shared Folders
– These are file folders which can be shared
across the company. This helps in centralized
storage and distribution of company
information.
Outlook Mobile & Web Access
– Recognizing the greater need for flexibility
and mobility, this feature is part of the more
recent Exchange editions. Called as
Outlook Web Access (or OWA),
this allows users to access their Outlook
account and most of its features from the
internet using a browser, and also from mobile
devices.
MS Exchange - A Big "No No" for Growing
Businesses?
What’s the catch, you would ask.
Unfortunately there is one - especially for
smaller businesses. Exchange was crafted
primarily for the juicier segment – big
businesses, and consequently requires major
implementation and ongoing maintenance, and
comes with a price tag that would be back
breaking for small businesses. A MS Exchange
implementation entails for 15 users around
$10,000 annually.
In House Servers
– Exchange requires you to setup in-house
servers, & all the associated hassles –
physical space,
uptime,
redundancy, security, backup, power et al.
sendmail vs postfix vs exim.
Software Licenses
– Exchange requires users to purchase licenses
on a per user basis. For example, the cost of
Microsoft Small Business Server 2003 Standard
Edition with 15 Client Access Licenses is
approx $1500 annually.
Deployment & Maintenance
– Configuring MS Exchange entails a sea of
concepts & jargon much beyond a non techie. In
addition the system needs dedicated
administration & maintenance. This means
additional costs in terms of IT time.
Incomplete Solution
– Moreover, Exchange offers only a partial
deal, lacking collaboration components –
document management,
intranet
and
extranet
portals – that have become intrinsic to
today’s corporate survival, requiring
customers to purchase their communications and
collaborations tools piecemeal, at precious
lost time and expense.
Support & Training Issues
– Given its clout, Microsoft is able to demand
a price for its support services, which is
otherwise unheard of. As if this is already
not a major disincentive for smaller firms,
there have been
reports
of Microsoft being unable to cope with the
quantum of service requests it gets for some
of its solutions.
Growing companies have well been aware of the
above vices, but because of lack of better
solutions had to put up with this lumbering
giant. At the same time, Microsoft Outlook is
near axiomatic in companies, and its features
of shared contacts, calendars, and tasks help
much to enhance day to day productivity. Both
these facts taken togather, these companies
have long harboured a secret dream - the
ability to
access and share Outlook mail, contacts,
calendars and tasks without
Exchange.
The SAAS Model - Win-Win for Growing Business
Although it would have been true 8-10 years
ago that growing companies did not have many
alternatives to Exchange, the landscape is
much changed now.
Recent times have seen a discernible movement
towards the hosted,
software-as-a-service
(SAAS) model. Briefly, SAAS means that the
solution is hosted on the service provider’s
servers, and provided to customers as a
service over the internet.
Companies have overcome their initial
skepticism, and more and more companies are
embracing
these solutions. This holds true not just for
the messaging market, but for just about any
software technology, with web based office
suites, video editors, telephony solutions,
operating systems and what have you. Early
SAAS companies like
SalesForce
&
HyperOffice
have no little contribution in popularizing
this approach. There’s talk of “death of the desktop” and behemoths like Microsoft lagging in the
race.
Exchange SAAS - Bettering Exchange Vices
The SAAS model is known to offer some
benefits which are especially suitable to
smaller companies. Exchange SAAS, more
commonly called “hosted Exchange”, has particularly been a big hit with small
companies.
A “hosted Exchange” service provider has
Exchange implemented on his servers, and
sublets Exchange services to customers. In
addition to providing Exchange features, the
“host” has done extensive development at his
end, often integrating additional technologies
& features into the basic solution, and
provides a prepackaged, ready to use solution
to customers. Some advantages of this are
summarize as follows:
Zero Setup -
Firstly, the solution provider takes the
bother of hosting Exchange, saving the
customer the effort of purchasing, configuring
and maintaining servers, and hiring
specialized support staff.
Ready to Use
- With all the hard work done, companies can
get a ready made solution with all the
features of Exchange fitted to their needs,
plus a whole lot of extra features. These
solutions are ready to use from day one,
requiring little more than the user getting on
an internet browser and signing up.
Security
- The hosted model also scores from a
security point of view. These solution
providers often have security expertise and
technologies not available to smallish
firms.
Low Cost Commitment
- Almost no upfront monetary investment is
needed. The cost structure is usually a low
monthly user based subscription fee. This
ensures that companies pay only for what they
use, and there is no obligation of carrying on
with a bad solution to recover initial
investment. Companies have the flexibility of
opting out whenever they please.
Get All that is Good About Exchange
Since the core offering of these companies is
“hosted Exchange”, all of Exchange’s features
are available to customers. Companies can set
up Outlook mail accounts,
share Outlook calendars, share contacts,
share tasks and share folders without
Exchange
ever coming into the picture and often with a
simple signup. That said, there is still a lot
of variation in the offerings out there,
since a lot of functionalities
are built around this basic offering. Some
score from a user friendliness point of view,
some in terms of features, while others in
terms of costs. A sample set of features of a
“hosted Exchange” provider are as
follows:
Beyond MS Exchange
As mentioned before, many of these solutions
go much beyond Exchange functionality, and
offer a whole tool box of features for almost
the entire range of small business needs. For
example,
one provider
has SharePoint features built into the
solution and allows users to publish dedicated
intranets & extranets, and allows advanced
document management and sharing. Extra
features like polling and forums are thrown
into the mix. This saves companies the need to
purchase solutions piecemeal for different
needs.
Flexibility
Cross Platform Use -
Flexibility is another hallmark of hosted
Exchange solutions. Since the internet is the
mode of deployment of these solutions, they
are built to work in diverse environments. All
you need to access them is a
web browser, & you can use the entire feature set from
any internet enabled device – mac, windows,
desktop, laptop or
handheld. This makes for a better internal as well as
“outside facing” solution. Traveling teams,
partners, vendors, clients just need an
internet connection to be on the
“network”.
Communicate With other Software
- Moreover, these solutions are built to
communicate seamlessly with other software.
These solutions can be used in tandem with
popular software which are a part of every
company, for example Outlook.
No Need for Updates
- The hosted model also renders unnecessary
the need to download and install
updates
& bug fixes regularly. The provider simply
keeps adding upgrades, patches and new
features at his own end and these are
instantly available to the users of the
software.
Conclusion - Decision Criteria
A wide range of solutions is on offer in the
market. Some important criteria that need to
be considered while making the selection
are:
-
Do they provide the basic Exchange feature
set?
-
What kind of initial investment is involved
in terms of effort and costs?
- What are the total costs?
-
Is the solution scalable as the
organization grows?
-
What kind of security do they provide?
-
Are there additional features? (relevant to
needs)
-
How well are features integrated within the
solution
-
Do they provide support and training
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