For those who are Novell Groupwise shops, recently Sonian announced Sonian Archive.  According to the Press Release

“An on-demand hosted service with a 15-minute online subscription sign up, Sonian Archive enables GroupWise users to get up and running quickly without investing in any additional hardware or software infrastructure. The service also satisfies all governance, risk and compliance requirements; and provides litigation support and e-discovery, storage resource management, business continuity and best business practices. With the Sonian Archive Service, Novell GroupWise customers receive:

Self-training UIs: Sonian user interfaces are intuitive for all skill set levels, and extensive self-service online training videos guide users through all tasks. An online interface for GroupWise enterprise administrators provides access to management for trusted applications, as well as the ability to define post office agents and configure the collection criteria that best fits their organization without the help of systems engineers.

Compliant archiving: Sonian leverages the GroupWise retention date service to lock down mailboxes and/or post offices and prevent users from removing messages from their Trash until they have been successfully captured by the Sonian collection service in a compliant and secure way.

Unlimited, cost-effective storage: Sonian Archive takes advantage of unlimited and low-cost Cloud storage to archive enterprise emails and other user-generated content for an affordable monthly fee usually between $3.00 and $5.00/month.

Millisecond search and analysis of dark data: Unlike other hosted archive offerings that reduce costs by migrating older data to offline or near-line storage systems, Sonian Archive keeps all data online and immediately accessible from any internet connection 24 hours a day. Its powerful search engine delivers rapid search results on all historic data.

Improved GroupWise performance: Without the need to retain large GroupWise databases, timeframes for backup and restoration windows shorten and upgrading to new service packs and versions of GroupWise becomes much, much easier.

Integration Into GroupWise 8 Client: The Sonian user interface can be accessible directly through the GroupWise 8 client so that users can manage their live mailbox and archive through a single familiar interface”

“Intermedia was the first to market with hosted Exchange 2007 and now hosted Exchange 2010,” says Serguei Sofinski, Intermedia’s chief executive officer. “This is about more than innovation for innovation’s sake. We are serving our customers and our partners with sophisticated Fortune 500-grade systems – but in a way that is deeply practical for small- and medium-sized businesses.”

“Exchange 2010 is a powerful tool for Microsoft as it defends its email and collaboration market leadership against online services like Google Apps,” adds Michael Osterman of industry analyst firm Osterman Research. “Microsoft built Exchange 2010 to be delivered as a reliable online service, both from its partners and Microsoft itself. But most small- and medium-sized businesses require more than an online service. They require a range of capabilities around the service, from help with migration to a control panel that makes it simple to administrate Exchange. By addressing these issues, Intermedia continues to position itself as a leading, full-service provider of hosted messaging services. Any small- to medium-sized business considering migration to Exchange 2010 should give Intermedia a very close look.”

What does this mean?  Those looking toward the cloud for their email services can now take advantage of the new features of Microsoft Exchange 2010 – like integrated archiving, better delegate administration, and automatic email encryption.

Here are two recent blog articles that will help you understand some of the issues associated with signing up for hosted services:

Implementing SaaS SLA – an evolving space [blog.serviceframe.com]

This article talks to how to agree on and measure Software as a Service Service Level Agreements

The SaaS Business Model and Some Common Legal Questions [interwest.com]

This article talks to the provider side of the equation – and contains insight that will ensure you are informed before entering negotiations with your hosting provider.

According to Microsoft Technet…

“Exchange Online delivers email services including spam filtering, anti-virus protection, and synchronisation of mobile devices”

“Through Microsoft Office Outlook 2007 and Microsoft Office Outlook Web Access, you can use the advanced email, calendar, contact and task management features of Exchange Online.”

“Office  Outlook Web Access enables users to access their email messages from almost any browser – whether the user is in the office or on the road.”

From firsthand experience – I actually find OWA – Outlook Web Access a very hand feature of hosted (or non-hosted) Exchange environments.  The ability to access your Exchange mailbox from anywhere, anytime means that you can clear your email on your terms!

“Microsoft Online Services… world-class products delivered as a subscription service hosted by Microsoft”

These services span Productivity, Business Services, Collaboration, Communications, Compliance, and IT Management.

What does that really mean?  You can subscribe to an online service which delivers hosted versions of Exchange, SharePoint, Office Communications, Live Meeting, Dynamics CRM and System Center – without the hassle of having to run your own servers, with the added advantage of it all being operational expenditure.

So check back over the next few days as we dive deeper into Microsoft Online Services.

The goal of this website is to publish news, reviews and updates on different enterprise hosting options across email, collaboration, crm, voice, web servers and contact centers.

So irrespective of technology – for example Microsoft Exchange, SharePoint, CRM, Google Apps, GMail… irrespective of what geography you are in – North America, South America, Asia, Europe or Australasia… you will be able to find the best hosted service for your business. Large or small.