Four months after expanding our hosted Exchange reseller partner program to Latin America we are pleased to announce today that we signed several key private label partners and affiliates in the region, including Solosoft – the Bogota, Columbia-based systems integrator – and Soto Networks, a managed service provider based in Venezuela. Soto Networks immediately posted a 1,000-seat hosted Exchange account.

Check out our news release: http://www.intermedia.net/about-us/news/press/2009/growth-in-latin-america.asp

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New article by Intermedia COO, Jonathan McCormick, launched on eWeek today.

How to Ensure SAAS Providers Are Truly Protecting Your Data

From how to ensure SaaS providers are truly protecting your data to infrastructure requirements – Jonathan discusses it in the article.

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First 100% Data Protection Guarantee in Exchange Hosting Industry: Intermedia pushes industry toward greater operational and technical transparency

Today we announced that our hosted Exchange 2010 service includes a 100 percent Data Protection Guarantee. The public guarantee is a first among top software-as-a-service (SaaS) providers and is designed to give customers and partners full confidence that their business-critical data is safe with Intermedia.  

“Whenever organizations entrust their data to a third-party, whether via a cloud computing service or a traditional outsourcing arrangement, it’s important to evaluate the vendor’s technical and operational capabilities to fully protect the data,” says Jeffrey M. Kaplan, managing director of analyst firm THINKstrategies and founder of the SaaS Showplace. “We recommend businesses carefully evaluate the vendors’ ability to verify they have the proper back-up and recovery systems as well as the policies in place to safeguard their records, such as Intermedia’s Data Protection Guarantee.”

“The cost of data loss to a business is too great not to be protected 100 percent,” says Jonathan McCormick, chief operating officer, Intermedia.  “Intermedia guarantees not only the reliability of our service, but the complete safety of our customers’ data. Our customers can have peace of mind knowing that their data and communications are protected from any eventuality.”

Click here to read the news release.

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We are pleased to announce that we just launched the first hosted Exchange 2010 service.

The launch comes directly on the heels of Microsoft’s announcement of the availability of its Exchange Server 2010 software. Our hosted service is available to direct customers and affiliates, adding key features such as support for BlackBerry^® wireless solution and free migration from legacy versions of Exchange. Microsoft partners wishing to resell hosted Microsoft Exchange 2010 under their own brand will be able to offer Intermedia’s private label platform later in 2009.

“Intermedia was the first to market with hosted Exchange 2007 and now hosted Exchange 2010,” says Serguei Sofinski, Intermedia’s chief executive officer. “This is about more than innovation for innovation’s sake. We are serving our customers and our partners with sophisticated Fortune 500-grade systems – but in a way that is deeply practical for small- and medium-sized businesses.”

“Exchange 2010 is a powerful tool for Microsoft as it defends its email and collaboration market leadership against online services like Google Apps,” adds Michael Osterman of industry analyst firm Osterman Research. “Microsoft built Exchange 2010 to be delivered as a reliable online service, both from its partners and Microsoft itself. But most small- and medium-sized businesses require more than an online service. They require a range of capabilities around the service, from help with migration to a control panel that makes it simple to administrate Exchange. By addressing these issues, Intermedia continues to position itself as a leading, full-service provider of hosted messaging services. Any small- to medium-sized business considering migration to Exchange 2010 should give Intermedia a very close look.”

Read the Intermedia hosted Exchange 2010 launch press release.

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We’re announcing today a new partnership with Ingram Micro Seismic. Under the new alliance, Ingram Micro Seismic will co-market and sell our hosted Microsoft Exchange 2007, Office Communication Service (OCS), SharePoint 3.0 and Dynamics CRM to its rapidly growing reseller and MSP partner base. The private label hosted services are available now as part of Ingram Micro Seismic.

We operate the world’s largest hosted Exchange service, hosting more than 225,000 premium Microsoft Exchange mailboxes. The alliance with Ingram Micro Seismic marks a growing demand for hosted solutions and is, for us, a major resale agreement with a worldwide distribution partner.

Ingram Micro’s confidence in our hosted solutions offering is a direct result of our commitment and demonstrated record of providing unsurpassed service and uptime to our customers. We are looking forward to working with the Ingram Micro Seismic team and helping their partners grow their businesses and increase their recurring revenue streams by leveraging our portfolio of hosted Microsoft solutions.

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Intermedia is making Exchange hosting upgrades simple and cost-effective with our proprietary tools and Exchange Concierge^™ service. When Exchange 2010 launches we’re offering free migrations to our hosted Exchange 2010 customers.  Migrations will be performed by our Exchange Concierge^™ team using proprietary tools we developed for hosted Exchange 2003 and 2007. The tools are being readied for use with hosted Exchange 2010, in part through the hosted Exchange 2010 beta we launched in May 2009.

The free migration offer will be open to  new customers as well as existing customers that choose to upgrade to an Exchange 2010 hosting plan.

We forsee free migration to hosted Exchange as of particular interest to the many small and medium-sized businesses that require upgrade from Exchange 2000 or Exchange 2003.  The proprietary tools Intermedia custom-built are critical to the successful outsourcing of email for small and medium-sized businesses. We are able to handle migrations at no additional cost to our customers, minimize disruption to their business and preserve the value of their existing Exchange set-up.

Today we provide the Exchange Concierge service as part of its hosted Exchange 2007 offering. The service uses proprietary tools, including:

• Intermedia’s PST Manager– which enables importing and exporting mail data directly from HostPilot® Control Panel, Intermedia’s proprietary control panel
• Intermedia’s ROH Data Manager – which allows the seamless pull of mail data remotely from an in-house Exchange environment securely over the Internet
• Mass User Creation Wizard – which enables rapid creation of an Exchange account, including mailboxes, contacts, distribution groups, email addresses and contact information that match what exists within the client’s current in-house Exchange and Active Directory

Click here for information on our Exchange 2010 beta.

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With mega-hype – such as the incessant promotion of ‘the cloud’ in IT – inevitably comes a mega-backlash. Witness today’s public relations disaster, where T-Mobile USA has suspended sales of the Sidekick and offered those customers the option of ditching their contracts without penalty because of a ‘cloud failure’ – the servers lost all the data (eg personal contacts) stored on the Sidekick devices with apparently no hope of ever getting it back.

This ‘cloud failure’ has of course led to some nasty headlines from IT writers, like ‘When the Cloud Fails’ (GigaOM) and ‘Cloud Goes Boom’ (InformationWeek). But there’s the problem: there are so many different clouds. Some of them may well be shoddy and some are highly secure and reliable – but they all get lumped under this same ‘cloud’ umbrella.

It is a bit like saying that ‘hobbies are dangerous’ – even though some hobbies are not dangerous at all (playing bridge) but some are very risky (free-climbing the North Face of the Eiger).

Over time, as more – in fact, most – businesses come to rely on ‘cloud’ services, such as hosted Exchange, they will need to discern one cloud from another. Is it a nice, shiny cloud with multiple tier-4 datacenters and multi-site backup, like Intermedia, or is it a drizzly, wispy cloud with questionable reliability and backup? Until that time, we software-as-a-service businesses will need to keep explaining that not all clouds are the same.

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Today we enhanced our hosted Exchange 2010 beta offering – the world’s first – with two new features. This feature set leaves us positioned for a production-ready experience. Michael Osterman of industry analyst firm Osterman Research comments that Intermedia “…is leading the charge for hosted Exchange 2010…” Read more about the new features and more on what Mr. Osterman has to say here.

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We have decided to extend the Microsoft Exchange 2010 beta we debuted on May 27, 2009. As the leading provider of Microsoft Exchange Hosting, we’re receiving an increasing amount of inquiries about Exchange 2010. As it’s not yet available for sale from Microsoft, we’re looking for more feedback so we can generate an excellent production-ready experience.

Exchange 2010 and its Outlook Web Access interface introduce several features designed to enhance the user experience, such as conversation-style email formats and full compatibility with Safari and Firefox browsers.

As the Exchange 2010 beta is hosted, no software downloads or installations are necessary. Visit ourbeta Exchange 2010 hosting web-site to take part.

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Intermedia’s Brent Rich (Director of Operations) will be a guest speaker at The Radicati Group’s Microsoft Exchange Server E2010 web conference today (Thursday September 17^th).

At 12.30pm (EST), Brent will join speakers from Microsoft, EMC, HP and USA.NET to discuss the impending Microsoft Exchange Server 2010 release. Due in late 2009, Exchange 2010 will add powerful capabilities for archiving and compliance, increased flexibility and reliability, and anywhere access.

The Radicati Group will provide a brief overview of Exchange 2010, and a speaker panel of Microsoft partners will discuss how they see it meeting evolving market needs.

Representing the world’s largest provider of hosted Exchange, Brent will of course discuss issues related to hosting Exchange 2010. We can’t give any sneak previews here, but the web conference is free, so please join:

https://www1.gotomeeting.com/register/650454993

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