Why use Microsoft Exchange 2007 Hosting?
What is Exchange?
Most small and mid-sized businesses are using email as a primary
communication channel with customers, colleagues and suppliers. But
many of these companies stop there, missing out on
productivity-boosting features like shared calendars, contact
information and files.
By upgrading to the world’s most popular business messaging
software,
Microsoft Exchange Server 2007 hosting , you can significantly
raise your team’s efficiency for a small monthly fee.
Basically, Exchange is a computer server that stores your company’s
email, calendars, address books and files centrally, so they are
available 24x7 and can be shared among your team, if you wish. It
is the messaging system of choice for most Fortune 500 corporations.
Advanced Exchange Hosting Features
People running Exchange as their email server typically use
Microsoft Outlook 2007 as their email ‘client’. Among many advanced
features, this lets them:
- Securely access email remotely – via the Web or a mobile device
like a BlackBerry, Treo or Windows PocketPC and Windows Mobile.
- View colleagues’ up-to-date calendars and schedule meetings
- Assign and manage company tasks on central ‘to do’ lists
- Manage contact information of employees and customers and access
it anytime
- Share documents across the team so everyone’s working from the
most current version
Exchange is a quantum leap from basic POP3 or IMAP4 email and makes
your team much more productive through constant access to email,
calendars and contacts, as well as important files and information.
Outlook/Exchange 2007 vs Basic Email
To help you understand the productivity-boosting options that
Exchange offers, here is a comparison of Outlook/Exchange 2007
versus basic email options:
|
|
Exchange Server 2007
|
POP 3 /
IMAP4
|
|
Group scheduling
|
Yes
|
No |
|
Send out meeting requests, then track and
update them
|
Yes
|
No |
|
Shared calendars and side-by-side calendar
views
|
Yes
|
No |
|
Access to personal and shared address books
from remote locations
|
Yes
|
No |
|
Outlook single sign-on for email and network
access
|
Yes
|
No |
|
Outlook connections over the Internet are
secure
|
Yes
|
Some solutions
|
|
Server-side spam filtering
|
Yes
|
Some solutions
|
|
Put multicolored flags next to emails as a
reminder to follow up
|
Yes
|
Partial
|
|
Ability to add voting buttons to a messages
|
Yes
|
No |
|
Automatic out-of-office reply
|
Yes
|
No |
|
Ability to recall sent messages
|
Yes
|
No |
|
Support for multiple-computer access
|
Yes
|
Partial
|
|
Access to email via Web browsers and mobile
browsers, Outlook Mobile in Windows Mobile-based Pocket PCs,
Pocket PC Phone Edition and Smartphones
|
Yes
|
Non-Microsoft products are typically required
|
|
Outlook Cached Exchange Mode for working with
intermittent Web connection (eg dial-up)
|
Yes
|
Some solutions offer caching
|
|
Offline email, calendar, contacts, and public
folder support
|
Yes
|
Partial
|
|
Access to public folders for sharing documents
and information
|
Yes
|
Individual email folder access in IMAP
|
|
Basic email support for SMTP, POP3, and IMAP4
|
Yes
|
Yes
|
|
Easy management of Outlook and Exchange Server
profiles across multiple machines to lower support costs
|
Yes
|
Yes
|
Hosted Exchange
Now that hosted Exchange is available for no upfront cost, with
low monthly fees, smaller and mid-sized companies are increasingly
realizing the instant competitive advantage that Exchange can give
them.