Small Businesses and Hosted Exchange

I use my smartphone for just about everything. It’s there to check my email, update my Twitter, and confirm my appointment schedule. Since my freelance writing business is a one-man show, I don’t really need any enterprise-level infrastructure.

However, larger companies may appreciate the added functionality and utility of the Microsoft Exchange system. At the same time, they may not want to deal with all the hardware and support that goes into using that system. That’s why they might want to consider the Hosted Exchange services offered by a firm like Sherweb.

Let’s take a moment to review how this service works, why you might want it, and how much it costs.

In short, Sherweb will allow you have the enterprise-level functionality of Microsoft Exchange without having to deal with any of the servers and other hardware that go into having that secured corporate-level system. By using Exchange, all of your employees can have access to common calendars and email inboxes, synchronizing across computers (and smartphones) as needed.

The Hosted Exchange service offered by Sherweb is compatible with most computers, as Outlook 2007 is included in the price, as well as many mobile devices. These include the ever-present BlackBerry, as well as other smartphones like the iPhone, Windows Mobile devices, and Symbian handhelds.

As you can see, the necessary infrastructure for Microsoft Exchange can be quite complex. Depending on the size of your business, it simply may not be cost-effective to take on these responsibilities yourself. It may be much more affordable (and more stress-free) to go with a hosted Exchange solution.

Included in the infrastructure are the firewalls, EDGE server, exchange hub, anti-spam measures, Exchange mailbox cluster, backup storage, and more. There’s a lot going on behind the scenes, just so that you can see you have a 1pm with a very important client.

So, how much does it cost? The basic hosted Exchange service chimes in at $8.95 per mailbox per month, so multiply that through for the number of employees that you have. This includes 3GB of storage per user and no setup costs. There are additional premiums, like larger SharePoint capacity (100MB included), if you need it.

For more information, check out SherWeb.com. Myself, I’ll stick to the free services offered by Google. That’s one of the pros to being a one-man show.