Exchange Hosting Reviews

Microsoft’s online data center experienced problems this past Monday, causing customers of it’s variety of BPOS cloud services to experience problems.

The problem lasted more than two hours, between 8:30 a.m. and 10:45 a.m. U.S. Eastern Time, and impacted “some customers in North America” who experienced “intermittent access to our data center,” Microsoft said in a statement.

“The outage was caused by a network issue that is now fully resolved, and service has returned to normal. During the duration of the issue, customers were updated regularly via our normal communication channels. We sincerely apologize to our customers for any inconvenience this incident may have caused them,” reads the statement.

The affected services included Business Productivity Online Suite (BPOS), Exchange Online, SharePoint Online, Office Live Meeting and Office Communications Online. Also among the services impacted were the Administration Center, Sign-In application, My Company Portal and Customer Portal of Microsoft Online Services, according to the alert.

Microsoft has since handled the problem and their many cloud customers remain satisfied, for the moment.

Steve Tassell may not be a household name, but he sure is important to the lives of Exchange users. He’s responsible for Microsoft’s Unified Communications business. This includes Exchange, instant messaging and Office Communicator. Microsoft’s own Paul Curran takes him to task in this illuminating interview that spends quite a bit of time discussing the features of Exchange 2010. Enjoy!

Q: IT departments in medium sized businesses are under pressure to deliver like never before. How will Exchange Server 2010 make employees more productive?

A: It will help medium sized companies deliver immediate benefits. Firstly, by making email available anywhere via Outlook - on the PC, phone, or browser. Secondly, by presenting email more logically in conversation views and by making it easier to find content when searching your inbox.

Q: What other facilities in the latest release are likely to make staff more productive?

A: Exchange 2010 offers lots of innovative benefits for employees. For instance, Voice Mail Preview converts voicemails to text, so staff can review their voicemails on a PC, phone or browser. As text, they become searchable and forward-able. Other innovations include SMS Text Messaging, and MailTips, which alerts you before you send unnecessary emails to people you know are ‘out of the office’, to large distribution lists or to people outside the company - all of which helps to cut down on spam emails.

We’ve also had very positive feedback on the new Conversation View feature that allows you to view email threads in one logical place – as conversations, regardless of where the emails are physically kept. Finally, I’d highlight Call Answering Rules that allow you to set up answering options based on individual users or indeed groups of people.

Q: Products don’t get launched without some testing first. Early reports suggest Microsoft Exchange Server 2010 is creating some excitement among early-adopter medium-sized companies. Why?

A: Yes, we’ve had lots of positive feedback from our early adopters on how Exchange Server 2010 is helping them in areas like storage, information governance and added productivity when using Outlook. Thousands of small and medium sized businesses have been testing the server and thousands of IT consultants are already trained in the product. All in all, there seems to be a very positive buzz flying around about the new release.

Q: Security is a major concern for most medium sized businesses these days. What does the new release do to help companies safeguard all that sensitive data that’s flying back and forth?

A: Exchange 2010 will help them protect their communications by allowing IT staff unrivalled flexibility to encrypt messages based on sender, receiver or even the content of the message and attachments. What’s more, with the latest release of Forefront Protection for Exchange, IT staff can easily add an extra layer of security on top of what comes built into Exchange 2010.

Q: Productivity is all very well, but we live in straitened times! Can Exchange 2010 help medium-sized businesses save money?

A: Businesses large and small around the world are already reporting major cost savings. In the UK, for example, NEC Phillips has experienced email storage cost savings of 70%, as well as providing its end users with eight times more mailbox storage. TriWest Healthcare Alliance in the US is saving approximately $250,000 with Exchange 2010 by avoiding the cost of purchasing an independent archiving and retention system.

We’re also hearing of employee productivity gains of more than one hour per week per employee – for a company with just 100 employees, that’s a saving of 5000 man hours per annum.

Industry analysts are also validating this level of return. In its Total Economic Impact study, Forrester Consulting concluded that companies can expect a payback in less than six months with Exchange 2010.

Q: Will Exchange 2010 help companies avoid any other costs?

A: For its study, Forrester conducted in-depth interviews with nine Microsoft customers and found that Exchange 2010 was helping most avoid costs in the areas of storage, voicemail and mobility. A majority said it reduces the cost of high-availability and backup systems. Most also reported fewer IT helpdesk calls, increased security in their communications, as well as simplified compliance and legal discovery – all of which are saving them time and money.

Q: Would it be right to assume Exchange 2010 is a move in the direction of Cloud Computing?

A: This release certainly marks a significant step in our ongoing efforts to fully embrace software-plus-services. We recently announced significant progress toward helping companies manage email more efficiently by moving all or some of their users to the cloud. Now that it’s available in 36 countries and regions, many leading brands have already adopted Exchange Online – for example, Aon Corporation, Glaxo Smith Klein and McDonald’s Corporation.

Q: Steve, thanks for giving us lots of useful background on the new release. Lastly, where would you recommend our readers look for more information?

A: Take a look at the Exchange 2010 launch event by visiting our virtual launch site which has lots of information on Exchange 2010 and other exciting releases under our New Efficiency banner.