What is Outlook / Exchange?
Microsoft Exchange email is far
superior to the basic email still used by some businesses.
Outlook Exchange compared to. standard email
Smaller companies in New Orleans generally begin with POP email – the basic,
no-frills email that’s been common since the 1980s.
POP email is saved on your local PC, rather than on a central email server, so if you use various devices – like a desktop PC and a BlackBerry – you won’t receive emails which arrived by means of a different device.
POP email is inexpensive, but doesn’t offer Outlook Exchange’s sophisticated features, like task lists, file-sharing, calendars, or contacts.
Many businesses use an older email application called Lotus Notes. This works similar to Microsoft Exchange, but is not easy to use and is not compatible with Microsoft Outlook.
Features of Microsoft Exchange
Microsoft Outlook-Exchange is popular because of its user-friendliness and its innovative features, which increase productivity:
- Up-to-date: Exchange stores all data centrally, so you constantly see the most recent version of your email, calendar, files and contacts.
- Mobile access: Exchange is the software that powers email for handhelds like the latest BlackBerry?, Treo or Windows Mobile devices. It also offers advanced Web mail, so you’ll always be synced with your group.
- Shared calendars: Allows personnel to view their colleagues availability to schedule or reschedule meetings, reserve meeting rooms, and organize tasks.
- Shared task lists: Allows the creation and assignment of ‘to do’ lists, which can then be shared with team members. Supervisors can check off assignments as they are finished.
- Shared contacts: Company or shared address books means your customers’ contact details will never be lost or misplaced.
Microsoft Outlook-Exchange lets employees share information and work together productively, in a way that is in any other case in any other case extremely hard.
Why “hosted” Outlook / Exchange?
Microsoft Outlook-Exchange is the best corporate email software, but it is expensive to buy and run. Our ‘Hosted Exchange’ gives you all its benefits – without the high cost:
Costs of Hosted Exchange
Cost is the major reason why hosted Exchange is rapidly growing in popularity.
Upfront costs are several thousand dollars for even the most basic setup, putting in-house Exchange beyond the reach of smaller businesses.
Ongoing costs for in-house Exchange are also high. Either companies need to hire IT staff or pay consultants to fix each problem, adding thousands more dollars in annual costs.
| In-house Exchange | Hosted Exchange from N.O.T.S. | |
|---|---|---|
| Servers | All items must be purchased. Total cost for a small installation = Thousands of dollars |
All items included as standard. Total cost for a small installation starts at $10.95/month for each user |
| Storage | ||
| Backup | ||
| Software licenses | ||
| Email security (anti-virus, anti-spam) | ||
| IT staff time for deployment | ||
| IT staff time for maintenance | ||
| Quality physical environment and cooling, uninterruptible power |
Reliability of Hosted Exchange
Having email and collaboration that always works is now essential to doing business – and downtime is unacceptable.
In-house Exchange servers – usually in a basement or closet not designed for sensitive IT equipment – cannot match the reliability of hosted Outlook/Exchange.
Hosted Outlook/Exchange companies like us manage servers in large purpose-built datacenters with backup power, air conditioning and Internet connections. Below are the main threats to your email system:
| In-house Exchange | Hosted Exchange from N.O.T.S. | |
|---|---|---|
| Servers | One server – all email depends on this. | Cluster of servers – if one stops working, the others take over |
| Data storage | One or two hard disk drives – all email depends on these | Large cluster of drives which automatically share workload if one fails |
| Backup | Manual – sometimes slips due to time pressures | Automatic and frequent |
| Email security (anti-virus, anti-spam) | Updates not always made frequently enough | Continuous 24×7 updates |
| Data connection | Single data line to the Internet | Multiple connections, direct to Internet backbone |
| Physical environment | Low-quality environment, power, air conditioning systems | Tier-4 datacenter (as used by Google and Yahoo!) |
Features of Hosted Exchange
Exchange is great because you can expand it with add-on features. However, this is difficult in practice with an in-house system, as each feature needs to be installed from scratch.
With hosted Exchange, all features are already installed and ready to ‘turn on’ if you wish to use them. Below are features you may wish to add:
| In-house Exchange | Hosted Exchange from N.O.T.S. | |
|---|---|---|
| Wireless email Get your email and data on devices like a BlackBerry or Treo |
Purchase separate (expensive) servers and software licenses, install them manually | Add instantly through online control panel |
| Archiving Create a backup of your emails for compliance or security purposes |
Either a time-intensive in-house effort or another external service to manage | Add instantly |
| Extra disk space Expand storage with your business |
Purchase and install additional disk drives | Add instantly |
| Advanced anti-spam Sophisticated blocking of spam to keep employees productive |
Additional costs for software and maintenance | Add instantly |
| Anti-virus Reduce the risk of damage to your files and IT infrastructure |
Additional costs for software and maintenance | Included as standard |
| Fax via Email Let employees receive faxes anywhere they go, right in their email inbox |
Separate service to manage or self-deploy | Add instantly |