FW: (frankarr - an aussie microsoft blogger) : Updated Microsoft Hosting Solutions Give Service Providers the Tools to Attract Small andMidsize Businesses Spammed by one of my own! -----Original Message----- From: hschwenk@webershadwick.com [mailto:hschwenk@webershadwick.com] Sent: Thursday, 22 March 2007 3:38 AM To: Frank Arrigo Subject: (frankarr - an aussie microsoft blogger) : Updated Microsoft Hosting Solutions Give Service Providers the Tools to Attract Small and Midsize Businesses Importance: High Hi Frank, I want to give you a heads up on Microsofts hosting news that I think will be of interest to you. Today at the Microsoft Hosting Summit, Microsoft announced updates to two solutions for hosting service providers: Microsoft Solution for Hosted Messaging and Collaboration (HMC) Version 4.0 and Microsoft Solution for Windows-based Hosting Version 4.5. Following are key highlights: The solutions take advantage of the enhancements to Microsoft Exchange Server 2007 and Windows SharePoint Services 3.0, improving communications and information sharing, and work productivity for SMBs. Utilizing Microsoft Exchange Server 2007, HMC 4.0 provides anywhere access for users, built-in protection from spam and viruses, and operational efficiency for IT administrators. Windows-based Hosting Version 4.5 leverages SharePoint 3.0, which provides 40 customized templates designed to help address specific business needs, such as time management, accounting, and project tracking, and new tools to create Web-based content, such as blogs and wikis. If this is something you are interested in blogging about, and would like more information, please visit Microsofts official Hosting Summit 2007 blog at www.MSHostingSummit.spaces.live.com . This contains video clips of the keynote presentations announcing the updates, real-time blogging from inside the show, event photos, and much more. Please find the full press release below. Updated Microsoft Hosting Solutions Give Service Providers the Tools to Attract Small and Midsize Businesses New versions of Hosted Messaging and Collaboration and Windows-based Hosting solutions help hosting providers maximize the benefits of Web 2.0. REDMOND, Wash. March 21, 2007 Yesterday at the Microsoft Hosting Summit 2007, Microsoft Corp. announced updates to two solutions for hosting service providers: Microsoft Solution for Hosted Messaging and Collaboration (HMC) Version 4.0 and Microsoft Solution for Windows-based Hosting Version 4.5. The solutions take advantage of new features in the recently launched Microsoft Exchange Server 2007 and Windows SharePoint Services 3.0, two key Microsoft products that improve communications and information sharing and increase worker productivity. With these updates, service providers will have an expanded set of tools along with guidance to help them deliver a complete suite of hosted services to small and midsize businesses (SMBs). Hosting providers are at a critical crossroads as the demand for hosted services continues to increase exponentially, particularly from SMBs, said John Zanni, director of Worldwide Hosting at Microsoft. Successful hosters need to go beyond traditional hosting and cost-effectively develop and offer value-added services that will help deepen customer relationships and differentiate themselves from the myriad commodity options that currently exist. Microsoft provides the platform, solutions and guidance to help service providers achieve this. Key Benefits of HMC Version 4.0 The new version of Microsoft Solution for Hosted Messaging and Collaboration utilizes Exchange Server 2007, the industrys leading platform for e-mail, calendaring and unified messaging. Exchange Server 2007 helps protect the organization with built-in technologies that provide high availability, reduce spam and viruses, enable confidential communications, and aid compliance of regulatory or corporate policies. Employees benefit from anywhere access* to their e-mail, voice mail, calendars and contacts from a variety of clients and devices. Exchange Server 2007 enables new levels of operational efficiency by optimizing hardware, networking resources and features that help make administrators more productive. In addition to Microsoft Exchange Server 2007, Hosted Messaging and Collaboration also incorporates Microsoft Office Outlook 2007, Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 and Microsoft Windows Mobile 6 to provide a complete messaging and collaboration service delivering the best possible user experience. We rely on Microsoft to help us deliver premier on-demand e-mail and collaboration solutions to our SMB customers, said Amir Hudda, chief executive officer of Apptix. Due to recent acquisitions, we currently operate on multiple platforms comprising different architectures and provisioning systems. With HMC Version 4.0, we will be able to consolidate these systems onto a single platform and turn our focus to new revenue opportunities that will allow us to offer more applications, deliver best-in-class services and support, and attract more customers. We believe that the Hosted Messaging and Collaboration solution has matured to a point where we can now gain significant benefits. Reseller Opportunities With HMC Service providers and resellers can also work with an HMC private-label provider such as groupSPARK to reach the SMB market with a variety of hosted services. GroupSPARK, a leading Exchange-hosting private-label provider, has developed a platform that allows it to power the HMC solution for resellers, including Web hosters, value-added resellers and systems integrators, that in turn resell the services to SMBs. This model enables resellers to speed time to market while requiring minimal investment in IT infrastructure. We work with groupSPARK to deliver to our SMB customers an enterprise-class e-mail and collaboration service that takes full advantage of HMC, said Russ Sprunger, vice president of sales and marketing at EasyStreet Online Services Inc. Choosing to white-label the service gave us an extremely quick time to market with minimal risk, while giving our customers the security-enhanced and reliable experience they were looking for. We not only offer customized services branded with our company name but also offer our customers the local EasyStreet technical support that they know and love. Web and Data Hosting Enhancements to Windows-Based Hosting Version 4.5 Microsoft Solution for Windows-based Hosting Version 4.5 helps service providers reduce operational costs for Web hosting and offer a broader set of Web applications to SMBs. The new version incorporates Windows SharePoint Services 3.0, which provides the ability to deliver lightweight Web-based applications to address specific business needs such as time management and project tracking. SharePoint also features collaboration tools that help organizations increase team productivity and streamline business processes. Available today with SharePoint 3.0 are 40 pre-built application templates. The SharePoint designer tool allows hosters and independent software vendors to customize the applications as well as easily create new ones to better address their particular client needs. As a Web hosting company with a strong focus on the SMB market, we find Windows SharePoint Services Version 3.0 to be a powerful enhancement to the Windows-based Hosting solution, said Mark Richman, director of Windows Development at Affinity Internet Inc. The addition of the new application templates helps our customers address real business needs and allows us to rapidly implement the IT solutions they require. The solution also enables us to more easily provision new customers and manage, monitor and update our systems so we can focus on delivering richer applications and better service to our customers. In addition to supporting Windows SharePoint Services 3.0, Windows-based Hosting Version 4.5 provides a