Can I Benefit from Hosted Exchange?
Email is the mission-critical communications and collaboration tool that allows employees to work smarter and more efficiently. The reliance on email has caused the technology to adapt and evolve, changing the speed of business itself. Brought about by these changes, employee expectations have grown. Today, they look for rich, efficient access to email, calendars, contacts, documents and more - no matter where they are or what type of device they are using. Email is now the core of any businesses IT strategy.
For a business looking at delivering a system to address these expectations and requirements, the needs must be weighed up against other factors such as security and cost. In today’s internet driven world, any platform must contend with security threats, from a simple phishing spam email through to the most advanced virus.
So what are the major benefits of outsourcing this business critical platform?
A Hosted Solution
Hosted Exchange is offered as a monthly Scale-on-Demand service which makes it cost effective and highly scalable. Being hosted and managed by a third party, there is no infrastructure to purchase and no footprint in the office.
Advanced Features
With Hosted Exchange, many business features of Microsoft Outlook become unlocked and positively impact your business’ ability to effectively communicate and collaborate.
Meetings & Events
Shared calendars allow for more efficient workplaces. Microsoft Exchange lets users arrange meetings by viewing colleague schedules, finding a time that works for all. Sending invitations, and tracking responses with the details automatically entered into all calendars.
Tasks
Shared task lists not only keep employees productive, but also allow supervisors to review the progress of each employee and delegate additional responsibilities.
Contacts
Mobile phone contacts, business email contacts and personal contacts. Juggling multiple lists can prove messy and frustrating. With Exchange users can centralise them all, accessing the same address book from your laptop, home pc, web browser or mobile device. All updated live!
Anywhere Access
Leaving the office doesn’t mean users are disconnected from their information. Mobile users have wireless access to their email, calendar, contacts and tasks no matter where they are – from client site to airport coffee shop, all synchronized live.
Using the Microsoft Outlook Web Access (OWA), users can securely access e-mail, personal calendars and contacts from any Web browser. With an interface very similar to desktop Outlook, users remain connected and productive while working remotely. This level of accessibility is crucial for mobile employees and offers an additional level of risk management for disaster recovery situations.
Scalability
Scale-on-Demand availability means that you pay based on the number of users that you require, rather than over investing in an under-utilised server. A Hosted Exchange provider’s infrastructure is in place for immediate implementation and allows new users to be added as your company grows.
Security
Any good Hosted Exchange provider will offer virus filtering to keep e-mail bourne viruses out of user inboxes. In addition and normally included with an Anti-Virus option will be SPAM filtering which compliments Outlook’s existing Junkmail filtering. Catch rates are often as high as 95%