Microsoft Exchange Online

Daniel333

Hey everyone,

Has anyone tried Microsoft Exchange online? The key feature I am interested in is coexistence. We have a large number of Exchange 2003/2007 customers who want to leverage their current hardware but would benefit from moving some of their departments to a hosted model.

Thoughts? Experiences?

blargoe

We looked at Microsoft BPOS earlier in the year as a potential platform into which to consolidate about 25 operating companies that we own into a single shared messaging environment. In our case, there were at least a couple of companies that needed features that the hosted Exchange/OCS platform could not support. Also I seem to remember that it isn't well suited to having a mixed environment for a company with some people being hosted and others being on premise. I think for a company that just needs email and IM without a lot of customization around the server configuration, it would work great. It is also in the process of being upgraded to Exchange 2010 if it hasn't been already, with OCS 2010 coming in Q1 2011.

JoJoCal19

I currently have a subscription to MS Exchange Online for my own company. I've been satisfied and have no complaints.

Claymoore

Definitely work through the Exchange Online IPD Guide to get a better idea if BPOS is the right choice for you:

Exchange Online?Evaluating Software-plus-Services

I did an assesment for a client considering BPOS (Business Productivity Online Suite) earlier this year, and most of the time was spent working through the IPD document. You get to evaluate how every feature is implemented in hosted vs on-premises and get an objective view of how BPOS would (or would not) meet your needs.

A few things to keep in mind, though. You can pretty much ignore the Dedicated offering because it requires 5000 seats and isn't really cost-competitive until about 20,000 seats. As Blargoe said, BPOS is switching over to Exchange 2010 - in fact, it should already be done. This gives you the federation feature which will allows for single sign-on to the hosted Exchange environment. If you are considering a mixed hosted/on-prem implementation you should move everything to 2010. The management console in 2010 integrates both environments, making it possible to manage both from one console.

blargoe

I think I remember the federation option required the customer's domain to be Windows 2008 domain functional level... or at least have Windows 2008 domain controllers... don't remember which.

apena7

My company uses Intermedia.