Make Hosted Exchange A Part Of Your BDR Program
As business people, I think we all agree that email is essential to our companies. We use it as a fast, low-cost tool to communicate with employees, clients, and prospects. Many of us market our services with it and despite the rise of social media, email marketing is still big business. Although, there are other applications out there today, however, Microsoft Exchange is the most popular for business use.
The fact is, businesses usually don’t realize how dependent they are on email until they lose it!
As Cloud Services proliferate, business owners and executives must think about protecting this vital communication tool should disaster strike. As we know now, the question is not if a disaster will strike, but when. We need look no further than Hurricanes Irene and Sandy and the recent snow storms that battered many parts of the country to realize that our offices can suddenly sustain massive damage and/or be without power and internet for extended periods of time.
If your business is hosting its own email onsite, you’re at risk. To protect this vital communication medium use a Hosted Exchange service — MS Office 365 in particular. EVERY business should consider migrating to Hosted Exchange as part of their Backup/Disaster Recovery (BDR) program. Here’s why:
- A key benefit of Hosted Exchange is that your email system is independent of your onsite server setup, so it is available anywhere you have an internet location and not subject to catastrophic events that may affect your office.
- You’ll no longer need to purchase server hardware to run your email system.
- Your employees will not have to spend time maintaining Exchange software or hardware.
- Ongoing investments in additional email software will be a thing of the past.
- Hosted Exchange allows companies to scale services. So you’ll pay for only what is needed.
- Hosted Exchange Providers operate high-secure, hardened data centers employing the latest security measures and redundant systems.
We highly recommend Microsoft’s Office 365 (MSO365) when opting to convert to Hosted Exchange. MSO365’s rates are very cost effective, often much lower than other providers. The fact that Microsoft includes MS Office licenses with certain subscription levels and generously allows users to install it on more than one workstation is often worth the price alone. Other providers charge extra.
One last thing: If you do not have a contract with a Managed Services Provider (MSP) like XSolutions, then you’ll have to spend the time and additional funds to manage your account with a Third Party Vendor or directly with Microsoft (if choosing MSO365).
Not all MSPs include management of MS Office 365 within their contracts. XSolutions is unique in this respect. We manage our client’s MSO365 accounts as part of our Managed Services contracts. Again, investigate vendors carefully and ask them about their support and any additional charges you may incur.
To learn more about our Managed Services Plans and Microsoft Office 365, call us at (845) 362-9675.
