There are several options for small business owners looking for a cloud based email service provider. Available choices include Office 365 and other on-site hosted exchange service providers like; Intermedia, Rack Space, App River and Go Daddy.
Small Business email solutions often have to meet the dynamic requirements of small business owners. Office 365 has quickly caught the attention of small business email users and many small business owners rank it next to Google Apps. Though Google Apps still leads cloud based mail services, Office 365 is catching up fast by providing extra features such as support for Black Berry devices and share point integration.
With respect to security compliance, the Office 365 is one of the only HIPPA compliant solutions and is working to obtain required international security compliant certifications including; FISMA certification, EU safe harbor compliance and ISO 27001 certification. Small business email solutions provided by Google Apps and Office 365 come with their own benefits.
Businesses wanting the advanced Office package features, including advanced options available with Word, Excel and PowerPoint, Office 365 would be a better option. There are other options such as Google Apps as well for the more simple business solution.
Pertaining to mail box size and seat cost per month, Google Apps and Office 365 out score other hosted exchange cloud service providers. As a small business service provider, identify different aspects such as; active sync support, compliance standards, uptime guarantee and the cost per seat to decide on the cloud based email provider.
Article by Scott Huotari, President CCSI, Google | LinkedIn
