Star’s new hosted service is delivered via their own data centres to ensure a robust always-on service with enhanced resilience compared to an in-house installation. Business continuity is built-in; the service is hosted across multiple servers, fully backed-up and is supported by guaranteed service levels. This means that a business’ mission-critical email service will be unaffected should they experience an equipment failure or loss of internet connection in-house. Star is the only service provider to provide full access to Messagelabs anti-virus and anti-spam protection services as standard, this guarantees 100% protection against known and unknown viruses.
With email use and volumes growing exponentially year-on-year, a key benefit for SMBs is that each employee has a fixed cost associated with them for the provision of email, of £8.99 per user per month, with no need to consider infrastructure or unpredictable costs such as license costs and backup. The managed service also eliminates the need for in-house maintenance as Star manages the availability and management of the platform including hardware upgrades or patches, as well as offering direct support, from an experienced team, 24/7, 365 days a year.
The service offers all the features that are standard with Microsoft Exchange and Outlook 2007. For businesses that need to provide e-mail access for employees on the move, Star also provides support for installation and ongoing operation for iPhone, Blackberry and Windows Mobile Devices – all without the investment in hardware or man-hours that setting up and running such a service in-house would require. Star is also the only managed service provider to offer SMBs an out-of-the-box, integrated Document Management System (Windows SharePoint Services 3.0) at no extra cost, along with a powerful collaboration suite which allows departments and teams to work together more effectively by utilising tools such as team calendars, discussions, announcements and alerts.
Patrick Harrison, of Independent Financial Advisers, Caversham Buchanan comments “Having access to an always-on, completely secure e-mail service is critical for our business, however, investing the time and hardware to manage this in-house, was simply not workable for us. Star’s managed service means that we have instant access to a feature-rich email solution at a lower total cost, along with the peace of mind of a guaranteed level of service – which means that we can focus on our core business.”
James Griffin, Head of Hosting Strategy Star, comments “Email has become the mainstay of the business world, yet we understand from our customers that the cost of managing, supporting and securing the service in-house can be prohibitively costly. With Hosted Microsoft Exchange 2007, we can deliver the latest functionality to SMBs through a service which is underpinned by a resilient infrastructure, to guarantee up-time. Our team has a wealth of experience in delivering Hosted Microsoft Exchange and we can use this to deliver a robust, fully supported service with no hidden extras, which has a predictable cost profile over the many years of email data management that lie ahead. ”