White Label Exchange Hosting

Hi Everyone,

Unlike most members in the forum (please correct me if I am wrong) we provide IT/Networking/Maintanance services as our primary business venture. Secondary is our DA Hosting services - which we would prefer to be at the top (and we are working hard to make this happen).

With this in mind we have been looking at "bridging-the-gap" between our Networking clients that have the funds for in-house MS Exchange systems, and our DA hosting clients that rely on Webmail/Outlook. This is where a we believe a White-Branded hosted Exchange solution would offer a great 3rd option (in our case) with little upfront cost.

I have also looked as several Open Source alternatives as well as non-MS solutions - which are very appealing. However, our client base is heavily "Exchange-Centric" and in the end our clients are going to "dictate" the route we take.

With this in mind does anyone on the forum have experience with White Branded Hosted Exchange solutions - pros/cons - customer support - downtime etc?

Some companies that I have looked at include the following:

www.123Together.com (same company: www.groupspark.com)

http://www.apptix.com (same company: http://www.asp-one.com/)

www.intermedia.net

Finding good information about any of them has been very difficult as "the web" produces so many "reviews" that appear to be marketing on the part of each company. Hence my turning to the generous knowledge/experience in the DA forum that has guided me VERY well over the past four years.

Thanks for any suggestions/assistance you can provide!

If I understand you correctly you're looking for a company that provides the hosting and customer support while you get the profits? You're basically looking for a reseller account with tech support included. Is that correct?

Hi Littleoak,

Thanks for the quick reply. That's close - not 100% though. We would provide 1st tier support and only contact the respective company if problems appear to be on their end.

I'm hoping to learn if anyone has experience with any of these companies and how responsive they are to any support requests (2nd tier) that we submit if needed.

I have read a lot of pros/cons for each company, and our decision boils down to which one has the most stable platform (e.g. some reviews have suggested ongoing issues that we don't want to fall into) - and best support.

do you have an enom account?

You can offer this if you have an enom account and you cant get much more stable than them!

Is enom's Exchange Hosting truly white label? For example does your client ever see their name?

Jeff

Just got off the phone...

And Enom says YES it is fully brandable and enom does not show, it is a "hosted" product But other than MICROSOFT you should only see your branding.

Then the only other questions would be:

a) How does their pricing compare with others?

b) How does their service to you compare?

Personally, I think I'd want to use a company that didn't do anything else; they're more likely to worry about losing individual clients.

As i've noted before, the difference between support from large companies and support from small companies is that large companies tend to support their systems while small companies tend to support their clients.

This company is one I've talked to in the past when I've seen them at shows. To me, they appear to be just the right size. I have NOT compared them as to pricing, with anyone. I'm not connected with them in any way. I've never used them.

Jeff

they look good, but two things stick out...

1. no pricing on their site
2. their site is very slow, I tend to stay away from anyone with a slow site... it's not a good sign when their own site is slow.

I didn't realize that Enom was offering hosted Exchange as well - I will look into this. However, I agree with Jeff on this one - would prefer a company that specializes in hosted solutions first.

Jeff also mentioned GroupSpark - this is one of the companies that I was reviewing (they also have another company - 123Together - see my original post).

I have read pros & cons for each - and it is hard to weed out the truth. However, from what I have read, Intermedia's pricing tends to be less than GroupSpark. I believe GroupSpark offers a 30 trial (they used to) and I may signup to see how the system works.

The benefits for hosted Exchange center around our business users - which we have a lot of. We integrate in-house Exchange servers for many of our clients, however, many more can't dedicate the finances to maintain an in-house solution. This is where hosted Exchange (+ Blackberry support) becomes ideal. Offering both standard Webmail and Outlook Web Access would be of great value.