Capital Hosting

When a small business considers setting-up their e-mail and collaboration system, the usual way of doing things is to call for an IT expert: it can be an in-house IT, or a third-party provider.

Then, the business manager has to provision for a capital expenditure when buying hardware and software licenses.

Then the IT expert will proceed to set everything up and train the users.

This is a typical and oversimplified process, but as you can see, the IT Expert is the pillar for strategizing and implementing everything.

While the goal of this article isn't to encourage you - the business owner - to remove the IT expert from the global picture (as you will always need them for other aspects of your IT systems), I just want to take you through the process of getting the job done when it comes to setting up your own e-mail and collaboration system - even without high-level IT expertise at your reach. In fact, most business managers would be able to implement a plan to have their own e-mail and collaboration system. You don't even have to be an IT expert.

To proceed, you would expect the following from the e-mail system you want to set up:

• Minimum maintenance to be done from your side: this is especially important when you are not an IT literate person. You want to focus on your core job without having to worry about technical bits
• Minimum (or nil) capital expenditure: you want an IT solution that is preferably not too hard on your budget
• Flexibility: particularly important as this will allow room for your facilities to grow (or shrink) depending on your business's evolution
• Reliability: You want a system that is proven and has traceable results

A few years ago, if you submitted those requirements, in any terms of reference, to an IT expert, they would have laughed at you - talk about having your cake AND eating it! But they would definitely be right. However, with cloud Computing, things have drastically changed and especially with a Hosted Exchange e-mail solution.

With a Hosted Exchange solution, things have become so easy to implement and, best of all, you don't have to be an IT expert to get it. First of all, not only is the solution for running your e-mail and collaboration system already identified, but it has a proven-track record. Indeed, it is a worldwide accepted solution that has already helped thousands of businesses around the world. It's not one of those trendy and not-proven-yet solutions that you'll be using as a guinea pig. The system works great.

Moreover, you don't have to physically install and maintain servers in-house. This would give any business owner a great advantage since it allows you not to worry about all the technical jargon related to the in-and-outs of server maintenance.

Finally, should you opt for a Hosted solution, the budgeting of your e-mail service would move from capital expenditure to operational expenditure since most Hosted Exchange providers can offer the service on a pay-as-you-go payment plan.

As you can see, gone are the days where you have to worry about software licenses, hardware bundles and all the upgrades and maintenance that needs to be done on the server's side: you can opt for a Hosted Exchange contract, get things set up by yourself or with the help of a Hosted Exchange provider, then you can go back to your core job. Everything would now be handled by the Hosted Exchange provider - you would quite simply be leaving it to the experts.

You can receive business grade Hosted Exchange 2010 services from Giacom. For more information, visit www.giacom.com