Hosting Partners Cast Wary Eye At Microsoft Office Live

If the number of press releases generated by hosting partners and their technology providers is any indication, the market is remains alive and well.

Last week, SWSoft, Herndon, Va., announced SWSoft PEM, new software designed to make it easier for customers to set up and connect their hosted mail to wireless devices. SWSoft PEM aims to make it easy for users of a hosted service to integrate Exchange e-mail with mobile BlackBerry and Good devices, said Exchangemymail.com's Grantz.

"SWSoft's console already let them control their mailboxes, set aliases and forwarding, [and] set storage limits, but now it lets you set up and generate passwords for mobile devices, lock them or wipe them clean," Grantz said.

Such technologies will help e-mail hosters continue to build out new services ahead of large vendors like Microsoft, industry observers said.

Amir Hudda, CEO of Herndon, Va.-based Apptix, said Office Live is simply not ready yet. "Office Live is Hotmail-based. At the end of the day, people are used to the rich client capabilities of Outlook, and there are many capabilities of Outlook and Exchange that you don't get with Office Live," he noted.

Clearly, carriers are one major channel for these hosted offerings from SMBLive and others. But VARs and solution providers that want to offer self-branded and custom services can build atop them as well and deliver them in a self-branded manner.

Cybertrails, a technology consulting and managed services company, is doing that atop SMBLive, said Rick Crutchley, COO of the Phoenix-based company. Cybertrails went with SMBLive before Office Live was an option but is happy with the choice.

"We love the tool. It's based on the Microsoft platform, and we needed a collaboration offering to complement some other service offerings, specifically hosted Exchange and VoIP," Crutchley said.

Cybertrails uses SMBLive internally as well and is especially pleased about its document management capabilities. "We love that we can collaborate with partners and customers and share documents," he said.

Still, like other hosting partners, Cybertrails hedges its platform bets, offering Linux-based solutions along with Microsoft services. "We are tech-agnostic. It's very important for us not to be beholden to one vendor," Crutchley noted.

That principle of vendor neutrality is a common theme among the hosting players. Apptix offers hosted Exchange Server and SharePoint, but it also hosts a series of value-added options atop that, some of which are not Microsoft-based. Apptix, too, is partnering with BroadSoft on its VoIP offerings because Microsoft's proposed Office Communications Server, which melds VoIP, instant messaging etc., "doesn't' cut it from a price perspective," Apptix CEO Amir Hudda said.

End-user pricing can be a la carte, with instant-messaging logging in at $3 to $5 per user per month, and SharePoint costing $50 to $200 per company per month. The VoIP stack can be an additional $40 per user per month, Hudda said.

InfoStreet started building its hosting business more than a decade ago atop Linux.

"We're neither Java nor Microsoft. When we started in 1994, we went with Linux, and people made fun of us. Now we're ahead of the curve," said Siamak Farah, CEO of Tarzana, Calif.-based InfoStreet. "In 1997, we went with Python, and now because of Google, we've been vindicated again. The company carefully prices its offerings so that there is ample margin room for VAR partners."

InfoStreet's services also include CRM and workflow. And last week, the company launched a new central online store to enable customers to easily get their domain-name of choice and POP/IMAP mail, as well as Web site hosting, creation and maintenance. Called Instantname.com, the service results from joint work by InfoStreet and Register.com.

Beyond Microsoft: The Google Threat
While all of these hosting partners look warily at the Microsoft's Office Live effort, some concede that they had better keep an eye on Google as well.

The Web search giant is diving into the SMB business app market with fee-based Google Apps. And Google, unlike Microsoft, does not have a long partner-infused legacy to consider.

"You've got to keep an eye on Microsoft, but Google's the one to watch," said Cybertrails' Crutchley.