Microsoft Clouds Do not Rain on Small Businesses – an overall assessment of Microsoft Online Services

Microsoft will SaaSy

Flashback

Used to be the undisputed leader in the early days of information technology, Microsoft has never been so easy since the advent of the Internet. No matter how hot Internet technology, Microsoft has always been caught off guard. It was never an innovator and always a laggard in terms success. Google beat you to search and online advertising, Yahoo instant messaging and e-mail the consumer, Blogger, WordPress and Typepad were much better at blogging software, never even appeared on the battlefield of social networks MySpace and Facebook with the decision of the perch.

But there were certain markets, especially the corporate market, in that Microsoft still has a strangle-hold, which kept its cash registers jingle, and a frantic pace to it. These were the PC operating system market with its series of Windows, MS Office for the Office suites, and its cash cows of the award – MS Exchange and MS Sharepoint for messaging and collaboration business.

Now, the software mentioned above are essential for any company, and from 5 to 10 years ago, Microsoft did indeed offer the most robust solutions available. In those days, as each body had been eyeing the business segment juicy big business, with its thousands of users implementations and IT budgets to burst seams, which was for the audience of this software were developed. Thus, although Exchange and Sharepoint required dedicated servers, complicated and implementations IT dedicated to man and maintain the system, no mind, because these mega companies had the money and manpower to spare.

The Present

But there was a thread that he lies, small business and medium-sized (SMB) segment, which had neither staff nor resources, nor the inclination. Since there were many alternatives available, they had to bear the burden, or do without these technologies fully. But recently, things began to change. In recent 3 years or so, a new approach has emerged, stimulated by improved technology and increased bandwidth – the software as a service approach. And its main market is the small and medium-sized business segment.

SaaS In a recent survey by Cutter Consortium, almost three quarters (72%) of people respondents reported that they are using Web-based solutions to fill unmet needs. More than a quarter of respondents (28%) are expecting these solutions will cut its costs by 20% -30%.

It is true that there was some initial skepticism, initially on the feasibility of solutions SaaS, as it involves giving up some control and allow critical data of the organization are in a third-party servers SaaS provider. But the benefits this approach has been so overwhelming, and because of vendors such as salesforce.com and HyperOffice providing SAAS solutions effectively on the years, organizations across the board, from small to mega, were converted.

Microsoft Plays Catchup

Saturated with the corporate market, Microsoft also has been relatively unexplored eye on small and midsize business market in recent years. Considering the success of SaaS with this segment, Microsoft introduced offered a succession of software offered as a service, in recent times, under the banner of Microsoft Office Live. But the real story of success with this segment was "hosted Exchange" and "Hosted SharePoint" solutions offered by independent suppliers, many of them certified Microsoft partners. First, a little refresher:

What is Hosted Exchange (and how it differs from the Exchange Server)?

Each company has dedicated e-mail the company to its employees, as well as productivity-based solutions for the oil to work every day (task management, calendars, books address). To meet these universal needs, Microsoft developed Exchange Server, whose main features consist of electronic mail, calendar, contacts and tasks. The front-end client for the Exchange through which employees access to all information that is usually the Outlook, but Exchange also offers support mobile and web access (called Outlook Web Access or OWA for short). But Exchange is running almost easy, since it includes the creation of a server dedicated, a company implementing complex Exchange, in addition to anti spam and anti virus further implementations for server security. Also, dedicated staff should be hired to monitor the system and keep it running, and to manage a myriad of complexities that may arise, since Exchange is a great solution.

Under the hosted Exchange, however, all aspects of implementation and maintenance of the implementation of the Exchange are outsourced to the servers of a specialized "hosted services" provider. Customers continue to take full advantage of the features of Exchange – dedicated mail, calendars shared / contacts / tasks and functions as a high quality mobile and web access to information (usually an extra cost). Unlike an application at home, where all access Exchange via the local network, in this case, it is accessed through the Internet. This approach is especially beneficial for small and medium enterprises that are saved the huge costs of implementation at home and instead of paying a reasonable monthly subscription.

What Hosted SharePoint is (and how it differs from SharePoint Server)?

In addition to the basic capabilities and e-mail, companies also have the ability to manage the company information stored in documents, as well as the ability for employees to work together with this information. This is SharePoint, Microsoft's browser based collaboration platform and document management does. It can be used to host and create a web site of the company, including shared workspaces and documents, as well as specialized applications like making lists, discussion forums, wikis and blogs. But the power of SharePoint is coupled with its complexity. It is the application is less complicated and costly Exchange. Moreover, it is not friendly to the End User. Cancer researchers can not share their knowledge directly, because they always have to either go through that intermediary, or specialized training that takes time and diverts attention skills. Knowledge is not disperse freely across the organization, but is strangled by going through the bottleneck of IT.

As with the exchange Hosted on Hosted SharePoint, all aspects of implementing an enterprise Sharepoint and management are outsourced to third-party vendors. Customers can also access all the features of SharePoint over the Internet, but for a reasonable monthly fee.

Microsoft takes the big plunge Services

While the market was not staying considerable sales, Microsoft was content as Exchange and SharePoint software products, and let your partners and suppliers unrelated to the hosting. But considering the bourgeoning SAAS market lately, and its future prospects, coupled with tough competition from "collaboration" messages and offers alternatives such as Google Apps, Gmail and HyperOffice, MS, finally, in October 2007, Microsoft finally took the plunge when he announced Hosted SharePoint and Exchange for companies with more than 5,000 seats – called Exchange Online and SharePoint Online. In February 2008, he was one step further with the opening of these services to all organizations, regardless of size.

"The hot news – Microsoft Hosted Service Bundles"

Keeping with his recent move and fast, on 8 July 2008, Microsoft made another announcement, the introduction of a novel, if the strategy is controversial. In addition to offering its services hosted offerings as unique, announced the first in 2009, would also offer them as "packages", a combination of services at a cost total reduced.

Microsoft introduced two "packages", titled Deskless Information Worker Worker suite and suite. The suite costs only worker Deskless 3 dollars per User per month, and will include Exchange Online services, as well as read-only access to SharePoint Online service. This is supposedly for workers who usually spend only a small part of your day in front of the computer. The information professional suite costs $ 15 per User per month and includes a full range of offerings, including Exchange Online, Free Share and Live Meeting, the web conferencing software from Microsoft.

An Assessment

Optimal Solution?

At first glance, it seems that Microsoft came out with a great offer. The entire range of Microsoft is the best of breed business applications, rolled into one, available for a very affordable monthly fee. Exchange Online for email, calendars, address books, scheduling and access to web and mobile collaborative SharePoint Online and personalized portals for the teams and partners, and LiveMeeting for holding conferences of audio and video with multiple participants no matter where they are. All available to customers in a single offering in an imminent reachable $ 15.

A good opportunity to validate the parts – as in messagin they have the right idea, project collaboration document management, sharing Outlook, couples with online meetings.

Think Again

Whenever something seems so perfect, it always makes sense to bring keep them up, and look more closely. The first sentence is to reconsider – "rolled into one" or "all in one." Does this mean that all the great deals Microsoft, have been integrated into a single solution and seamless, with all aspects of communicating with each other? Or is something else.

Well, it means something else. All in one refers more to "all in one price." Services continue as they did, only it will cost less when purchased together. Individually Microsoft to sell hosted Exchange Online for $ 10; SharePoint Online for $ 7.25, Office Communications Online for $ 2.50, and Office Live Meeting online for $ 4.50. Therefore, a price of $ 15, a saving of $ 9.50 per User per month.

Moreover, even the separate components of the new Microsoft offers solutions are bare bones, requiring the implementation and configuration, before a viable solution is configured. This is stress smaller medium enterprises are not equipped to do, or want to do. Although the prices of the packages from Microsoft, can be very tempting, one of the main companies go to the "hosted service" providers first, is that, in addition to hosting also offer "managed services". All aspects of configuration, integration and maintenance are their problems. If all the components – exchange, Sharepoint, LiveMeeting and Office Communications; be integrated into a single perfect solution, which will require the massive application.

Thus, despite Microsoft's offer could appeal the distance, is not the end to end, ready to use solution companies are really looking for. Microsoft offers all the pieces of the puzzle, but they remain separate parts that do not fit. Even if all workers measly price Deskless has attracted a lot of opposition. The verdict is that it serves a fictional working class that needs only read-only access to company information. Although workers in real life this class do not have access the information systems of the company, so that often interact with the system critically. One example is a nurse who may need to maintain the stock of hospital drug date.

Perspectives Hosted Service Provider

With Microsoft jumping into the fray, and at very competitive prices that traditional providers (Microsoft Solution Providers) of the Exchange and SharePoint hosting are certainly feeling the heat. Configuring Microsoft infrastructure on their servers, and still sell it as a service offered them a revenue stream stable and permanent. But Microsoft offer such services directly certainly cut into their pockets once can hardly hope to compete with the prices of Microsoft.

Microsoft was well aware that the latest announcement would pinch hosted partners disservice, and does not intend to cut them out of the picture completely, he made another announcement is intended to keep them interested. Microsoft Partners can resell new service offering hosted and pocket a percentage of revenue. Partners will receive 12 percent per User, per month, ahead of a contract first year and 6 percent per User, by months, the subscription fee ongoing. Thus, in the first year, resellers of hosted services will receive margins of 18 percent on the value of the signature, and 6 percent for subsequent years. But despite this carrot, the two sides are still hurting because of retail services from Microsoft, will not be as lucrative as leave out on premise deployments.

Some Microsoft Solution Providers are worried that this puts them in the feast or famine mode, trying find the next consulting project to generate revenues as opposed to recurring revenue streams associated with the maintenance Exhange and SharePoint servers running.

There is Hope

While hosted service providers that provide skeleton hosted Microsoft products will feel competition from new offerings from Microsoft, but there are hardly any sellers who do just that. A vital part of these companies has always been adding value through the integration of supply, consulting and management on the foundation of Microsoft products to accommodate their customers. And this need for integration, management consulting and because Microsoft is limited to offering basic hosting of its products, while end users need ready to use products without the need to implement and manage the application.

Thus, these companies can continue to do what I have done all along and still attracting customers – host Exchange and SharePoint on their servers, and build solutions on top of them and offer customers services. Alternatively, you can resell Microsoft's hosted services, adding value added services on top of that, and attract a higher price. An example would be support for e-mail on the iPhone and BlackBerry stripped hosted Exchange no. Or a company can integrate all components of the package from Microsoft – SharePoint, Exchange and Office Communications LiveMeeting, in a single perfect solution to a console centralized.

The search for solutions Truly "Complete"

Although with this announcement, Microsoft did not deliver much that seemed to offer, the need that it plans to address however is very relevant. The need for a true end to end, integrated messaging, collaboration and web conferencing solution, with each assembly of components together seamlessly and communicate with all other components. Solutions that do not require any hardware, downloads or maintenance and is ready to use in a day. Solutions that come with an affordable monthly subscription.

Thus, customers End users have to wait for a couple of years before anyone takes this challenge? The answer is a resounding "Of course not!". Although Microsoft may make it seem as if it were the first to serve this overriding need (not that it really serve the need), it was the precise reason for the pressure of competing products that Microsoft took the "hosting package" dive. Google offers a lot of convincing alternatives to Microsoft Exchange and SharePoint with Google Apps, Google Pages, Gmail et all. But even the star of Google products are fragmented, and has until the end of a truly integrated solution to the end. Moreover, he not have a web conferencing solution at all, which would be vital to a fully completed.

But there is another category of providers solutions, which may not be as big as Google and Microsoft, or obtain this type of antenna frantic, but they have offered solutions for years very attractive to small and medium businesses. Many of these solutions would be to put the big things to shame, and are in close contact with the real needs of the small and medium-sized business segment. To present my case, I will discuss the web application HyperOffice. HyperOffice has been operating on the Stock Exchange and SharePoint Alternative " field for years, and they built their solution from the bottom up, based on experience. It would be wrong to say that they have been doing for years that Microsoft promised to do now, and did not even that.

Now, to evaluate HyperOffice based on parameters we set for a real solution from end to end.

Exchange Features

HyperOffice includes e-mail marketing, management, shared contacts, shared calendars and shared task management. It also includes integration with Outlook and can be used to feed the Outlook accounts of their employees as if Exchange were running in the background, only its not. Users can access their accounts on their desktops using Outlook or online using any PC or Mac browser and all information is automatically kept in sync. Additionally, users can access and synchronize their accounts from mobile devices like the iPhone, Blackberry, etc.

Features SharePoint

As an alternative to Sharepoint, HyperOffice includes an editor tool, which can be used to create workspaces and dedicated intranet extranet for employees, departments, partners or clients. The editor allows deep customization of workspaces according to the needs of the User. Users can manage the thin appearance, layout, pages, linking these areas of work. Moreover, they can choose from a range of collaboration tools add to each desktop – document management, calendars, address books, task lists, task management, forums, instant messaging, polls, etc.

HyperOffice also includes a rich tool for online document management. It allows online storage and easy organization of all file types and allows people to collaborate on documents using features such as versioning, notifications, lock defense replace etc.

Web Conferencing

Keeping up with rising prices and increasing travel business start-up for conference web as a means of communication, HyperOffice recently introduced HyperMeeting, its web conferencing tool. It is as robust as any web conferencing solution, with the ability to conference with up to 125 participants, distribution of files, presentations, application and desktop sharing, whiteboard, etc.

Integratedness

The best thing about a solution like HyperOffice is that all the pieces fit perfectly in together. This makes sense because even in a company, all parts are always interacting with each other, and so it must be with a collaboration solution. Consider the following scenario: – A web conferencing needs to be configured. Since it is a meeting, invites must be sent to all participants. Thus, an automatic tool call will be involved. The tool will need to call to chat to address books to the right recipients are selected. In addition to ensure that participants have conflicting schedules, calendars should be compared. Before the meeting takes place some documents may have to be distributed participants, and collaborated on. Thus, the tool records management would be involved. The conference may be related to a milestone in a project. So, tool of project management would be involved. This is just a situation where you can enjoy the different parts of the system has to interact with each other, there may be a myriad of other such situations. The synergies that are being taken in such a system are tremendous.

In HyperOffice, different parts of the system join, simply, logically and effectively. No wonder he was nominated for several awards in the "design" category. Solution allows users to create workspaces for individuals with tools such as e-mail, libraries, personal papers, address books, calendars, to do lists, links, reminders etc. in the second level, the workspaces can be configured for groups with looks like document management and collaboration, calendars shared, shared address books, group tasks, web conferencing, forums, polls, chat, etc. This is a great example of what comes next message, collaboration and web conferencing capabilities.

Moreover, HyperOffice includes a myriad of other features that can only come after years of experience working with customers. These are the ability to integrate the solution with Outlook, access to mobile devices like the iPhone and Blackberry, and the ability to manage documents and drag and drop upload documents directly from desktop.

Another major aspect of an administrative point of view, is the ability to control everything from a central console. All aspects of cooperation are contained within HyperOffice and users do not have to look in different directions and learn a myriad of software for different uses.

Tailored for small businesses

Big names like Microsoft and Google's eye always the largest customers of the range of about 5000 places because of the profits juicer to be obtained from these clients. Thus, both products and services around these products take shape with the thread in mind. Small companies like HyperOffice, however, have been developed specifically for small and medium business segment, and refined through years of experience. The onus is on the development of products ready for use with the easy button "functionality".

HyperOffice only need one application and can be configured almost instantly. It is a tool End User, as just about anyone can enter the system and publication of information or the use of tools. No technical expertise required to implement or use it. Moreover, they also offer free training and support services to help businesses along the path. If a customer chooses, they can easily reduce its solution, and choose only a subset of the tools offered on the basis of their needs and comfort level, instead of the whole.

Conclusion

In conclusion, although Microsoft opened its hosted solutions to all, still appropriate for organizations that are largish if not is large. Vendors could also sell packages of Microsoft, playing in the integration and management services, but then they will ask a higher price and marks low price will not stay. Frankly, even in your avatar hosted, Microsoft's tools are still appropriate for small businesses, because they never been developed for this segment, and the effect will always try to squeeze a large walk in a shoe small.

Clearly, the lesson for companies growth is that while Microsoft and other big names have started late in the "Small and medium enterprises" bandwagon, one has to go through the hype, and look in all directions for the best solution. And in most cases, the most interesting solutions will come from elsewhere.

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About the Author

The author has 5 years experience working with web based technologies. His expertise lies especially in collaboration applications for the SMB segment.