Are big businesses turning to outsourced Hosted BlackBerry Exchanges?

There was a time, not so long ago, that the usage of Blackberry Exchange Hosting was pretty predictable. Small and even medium-sized businesses, not wanting to allocate a significant portion of their budget to IT, outsourced their hosting. Large businesses, on the other hand, tended to run their Exchange and BES operations in-house, paying for both equipment and staff, and why not? They would incur significant cost for outsourcing such a large operation, so they might as well have hosted operations in-house, allowing them more precise control. You might have noticed that much of the preceding paragraph was in the past tense. That’s because the game is changing. An emerging trend is for large businesses to outsource their BlackBerry hosting services, rather than run the operation in-house. This is going hand-in-hand with businesses turning to hosting services for their Exchange servers. But why are these large companies, with so much of their operation depending on IT services, turning to outsourced solutions? There are a number of reasons. Tony Francisco, CEO of The Message Center, elaborates: “There are many compelling reasons for companies large and small to outsource the Microsoft Exchange functionality, such as the large initial capital expenditure need for a ‘decent’ Exchange system.” David Grantz of Exchange My Mail elaborates a bit further: “They understand the value of the BES, but do not have the IT support, servers available, time and or money available to build this in house. It’s just to complex and expensive to do it in-house, as well as maintain it.” This is exactly why outsourced Exchange and BES are usually associated with small businesses. However, the trends have been shifting a bit towards larger ventures. “The norm for a while was the mom and pop shops with five to eight users. Now we see much more play with companies putting twenty-five to seventy-five users on,” says Grantz. Francisco agrees: “We have seen the trend growing to much larger customers outsourcing the Exchange service as the cost of maintenance and upgrades is so extensive that the cost justification is clear to anyone reviewing the numbers.” Upkeep. It’s one cost that is often overlooked in the personal finance realm (automobiles, for instance). Surely, it is an aspect that can be underestimated by even large, efficient corporations. As technology becomes more intricate, upkeep costs can rise, oftentimes to levels above what a company is willing to spend. Part of the problem, according to Grantz, is that there are too many variables in the calculation, leaving the upkeep costs ambiguous, and thus potentially budget-crushing. This is where outsourced Exchange and BlackBerry Hosted Exchange servers come in. In fact, hosting services like The Message Center and Exchange My Mail might be even better than in-house hosting, both from a functionality and cost standpoint. “Many of the small companies that have their own Exchange server are tired of the ongoing maintenance,” says Grantz. “It’s expensive and time consuming. Between, updates, backups, virus protection and other factors many smaller companies are finding it’s much easier and cost effective to outsource. They pay a small monthly fee per user and have no worries. The professionals can handle their communications, and they can focus on their core business.” Francisco details us the offerings of a typical Exchange and BES service:

• A datacenter that is always powered up and connected to the Internet
• Free Outlook software for every mailbox
• Enterprise class anti-spam and antivirus filtering included with every mailbox
• Nightly backups
• A 24×7 staff
• A secure network
• Ready-to-use BlackBerry and GoodLink service (vs. having to purchase the servers and conduits)
• No initial capital expenditure on Client Access Licenses (CALs)
• Digital certificates purchases and binded for a VPN-less secure connection from anywhere

True, some of the above can be achieved by an in-house staff. However, as Francisco notes, businesses moving to BlackBerry systems must purchase more equipment if they want to keep the hosting in-house. Not only does that mean an initial cost, but it also means, as we said, upkeep, which can be costly over time. Another advantage that hosted Exchanges can provide over in-house hosting is the staff issue. Many corporations have skeleton overnight crews ensuring the servers stay up at all hours — or some might not even have anyone on staff overnight. This is where hosted Exchanges provide enormous value. You can be assured that with people on staff around the clock, the hosted Exchange can keep true to their 99 percent uptime guarantees. And then there’s the issue of staff salary. “For a 500-seat company at $9.95 per mailbox, the cost of sixty thousand per year may seem expensive,” says Francisco. “However, when weighing sixty thousand dollars against the salary of an in-house Exchange administrator, which starts at sixty-five thousand, plus the cost of the Exchange CAL cost –eighty-seven dollars per CAL — plus the cost of a backup solution — two thousand — and an antispam/antivirus filter — three thousand — pound for pound, the outsourced solution is clearly the winner.” “The list just goes on…” says Grantz in regards to the costs a company can incur when hosting in-house. Francisco elaborates further on the economics of the issue. “Unless Exchange hosting is your core competency, there is no need to hire a full time Exchange admin to maintain your email system. Also, the cost of implementing and maintaining a secure and stable email system is expensive, and this is compounded if you need to meet HIPAA, GLBA, or SOX compliancy. Keeping up with technology to meet these needs drives the cost-per-seat to unreasonable levels.” When asked why, other than money, a company would choose to outsource their Exchange and BlackBerry hosting, Francisco replied with one word: “Security.” Of course, we wouldn’t let him get away without explaining himself. “Saving cost is nice and usually catches the center stage, but security should be the foremost concern of every company. The Message Center has built a network from the ground up on a secure platform that allows better than in-house functionality with a price that is palatable for any size company.” Just how are these Exchange companies able to keep their security to the highest of standards? Grantz explains: “Microsoft has developed a technology called ‘Multi tenant’. We follow Microsoft Best practices and use their MPS server (Microsoft Provisioning Server) and follow MS best practices. This means that each Organization gets it’s own recipient policy, it’s own OU, and its own group policy as well as all the other necessary policies required for complete separation. Only users of the same group and policy can see other users of that same group and policy.” Grantz has his own take on why, beyond money – and even security – companies would choose to outsource their operations: They’re the experts. “I believe that most companies understand that this is our business. This is what we do for a living. Our main focus is on Exchange and Blackberry. We have a degree of expertise that they simply cannot have. Just like I do not do my own taxes, I let the professionals handle it.”

About the Author

Joe Pawlikowski is the Senior Editor at MobileMoo.com and has been covering the mobile industry full time since 2007. When he's not writing about the tech scene, he can be found discussing his personal love - baseball (and more specifically the New York Yankees) as well as writing on his personal blog.