Reasons to Choose Microsoft Exchange Online for Email Hosting

Webmail is ubiquitous. Easy to setup, check from any browser, or download to email clients like Microsoft Outlook or Thunderbird, most individuals have several webmail accounts.  Many businesses use webmail for their business email as well, whether provided by a website host as an add-on service, or through more evolved products like Yahoo Mail Plus or Gmail.  These email options all share many characteristics, most based on the POP or IMAP protocols that are used for the email server and service. 

Traditionally only larger organizations and companies have utilized Microsoft’s Exchange technology for hosting email servers, which linked to Outlook clients provide some significant feature sets and productivity benefits not found on POP and IMAP email servers. A few years ago, companies started offering shared Exchange server hosting environments for monthly fees so that small-medium businesses that didn’t want the extra cost and hassles of their own in-house Exchange server could still benefit from the technology and utilize Outlook the way it was designed to be used.  Even more recently, Microsoft took that over themselves, providing the servers and improving the features and costs with Microsoft Online Services.  I have written about this previously in its’ several forms, from Exchange Online only up to and including the full Business Productivity Online Suite (BPOS).  I have yet to publish a simple list of the advantages and features small and medium businesses can expect when transitioning to Exchange Online for email hosting….Here is that list!

1.  More than email: Exchange adds a robust Contacts database, Tasks/To-Do Lists, Calendaring, and Public File Sharing

2.  Access methods:  from any web browser with Outlook Web Access, from smartphones with data and ActiveSync, from Microsoft Outlook

3.  Advanced scheduling tools, the ability to see multiple calendars within your organization, the ability to edit other’s calendars, the capability to share documents with others online easily, complex task database and task management, categories

4.  Reduced costs and complexity with all the productivity enhancements of a traditional in-house server

5.  Built-in backup of data, enhanced spam filtering and security tools compared to many other email hosts

If you add Microsoft Outlook 2010 to the mix as part of the email solution, there are additional benefits: Task Delegation (create and assign tasks to others); Enhanced Scheduling and Calendaring Features (Overlay mode for multiple calendars, scheduling assistants to suggest meeting and appointment times, plugins for services like GoToMeeting); and now the Social Connector (see updates from social networks like Facebook and Linked In for your contacts right inside Outlook).

At prices per user per month that are only a few dollars more than POP and IMAP email options, and new features coming with Office365 in 2011, there is little reason for any small to medium business NOT to give Exchange Online a try.  You may find it changes the way you do business and enables some exciting changes for your organization.

Contact tech@nsipartners.com if you’d like to work with NSI Partners for a free trial of any Microsoft Online product, or for support in transition from your existing solutions.

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