Why Would A Business Not Go For A Hosted Exchange Solution?

By Nick J Davies

Anyone who has read my previous articles will know my view on an exchange solution, but let me take a step back and see some reasons why people may not go for a Hosted Solution. Indeed, I don’t just want you, the reader, to think that I have a biased view and that I am only pushing you to go for a Hosted Exchange solution. In fact, stepping back and taking a good look at your business needs is harder to do than it seems, and I hope readers will jump in and weigh up the pros and cons for a Hosted Exchange solution so that you can make sure you are making the right choice.

Anyway, let’s see why a business may not go for a Hosted Exchange service:
Not a user of Microsoft products: If a company does not run Microsoft Office products, then most of the competitive advantage of a Hosted Exchange solution would be meaningless (or at least, competition would offer similar features). In fact, the optimum configuration for an Exchange server implementation lies in the use of Microsoft Outlook as the “client” software. So, for example, if my company runs Linux-based systems, chances are that a Hosted Exchange solution won’t be the best bet.
25 GB mailbox limit: most of the time, Hosted Exchange providers are limiting the size of the data per account to 25 GB. While this may seem big enough, experience has shown that the size really depends on how the users work. If I were an IT administrator of a company, I would expect that some of my users would want to keep all their data on a server so that they can access it whenever they want. While, practically, those users scarcely need to access data older than three months ago, I can imagine they would still want that feature. This stands particularly true when the user is approaching the 25GB limit and that the IT administrator contacts him so as to help him archive some data. Issues usually happen at this time since it’ll be hard to help the user decide which e-mails they need to archive – meaning it will be harder for them to access that data should they need to do so later on.
Challenging Internet connection: The use of any Hosted Exchange solution implies that the user/client has a good enough Internet connection so that it can pull most of the needed the data from the Internet. If, for some reasons (although it is now rare to see such conditions), the user has hard times accessing the internet, then having all the data for the messaging and collaboration system on a Hosted Exchange would be hard to argue for.
Control: Most IT administrators would feel secure enough if they know that all the data related to the e-mail system are physically hosted on servers that they manage. In fact, going for a Hosted Exchange may make them feel like they’ve been taken had a certain amount of control away.

As you may see, I have highlighted a few reasons why a business may chose not to go for a Hosted Exchange. Frankly speaking, most of these issues can be resolved. It may be pointless to convince someone who has chosen not to use Microsoft products to go for a Hosted Exchange solution, but for the other points, most serious Hosted Exchange providers will be able to provide solutions to manage them. That’s why it’s about standing back, taking a look at a service and picking what is right for your business.

Article Source: http://interpret.zar.vg

About The Author
Hosted Exchange by Giacom is available to businesses in the UK, Europe and beyond. Based on Hosted Exchange 2010 technology, features include collaboration, shared calendars, contacts, shared tasks, push email, and more.