Microsoft extends software as a service

Following recent success with its Hosted Exchange service with carriers such as BT and others, Microsoft today introduced the Microsoft Solution For Hosted Messaging and Collaboration 3.0.

Designed for carriers and other hosting partners to offer to small and medium-sized businesses, Hosted Messaging and Collaboration includes support for hosted versions of Microsoft Office Live Communications Server 2005, which supports presence and Instant Messaging, and Windows SharePoint Services.

The new offering, which will be available worldwide Jan. 19, is an integrated suite that service providers can offer to anyone with a Hosted Exchange mailbox, and is meant to bring large enterprise capabilities to smaller businesses.

“We are continuing to extend Microsoft’s commitment to software-as-a-service through our hosting partners,” said Morgan Cole, product manager of hosted messaging and collaboration at Microsoft.

Microsoft Solution for Hosted Messaging and Collaboration offers a collaborative environment that allows users to share calendars and contact lists with colleagues and interact with the full-featured Microsoft Office Outlook 2003 client. The collaboration tools, such as those in Windows SharePoint Services, provide an integrated information dashboard for sharing notes, collaborating on projects and optimizing resources.

The new release also gives service providers more management capabilities with proactive monitoring, provisioning automation, delegated administration and centralized management, which they can use to consolidate their existing e-mail systems onto a single platform.

“This allows service providers to do much more granular analysis of their environment and architecture,” Cole said. “They can understand if the server is having trouble, or look at the utilization of the CPU or a user’s mailbox and use it to identify up-sell opportunities for extra space.”

The analyst firm, Radicati Group, projects the market for hosted and e-mail services to reach 59 million accounts in 2008, 20 million more than there are today.

To make it easier for service providers to deploy, Microsoft included an upgrade to the Microsoft Provisioning System, which Cole said automates about 85% of the installation process. It is based on Windows Server 2003. The hosted platform also now uses Microsoft SQL Server 2000 and Microsoft Operations Manager 2005 for new reporting, filtering and security services.

Cole said that Microsoft's early adopting partners are working through the solution and providing feedback. Some, like USA.NET, have deployed the solution. USA.NET is currently a Gold Certified Partner for Advanced Infrastructure with Microsoft.

Cobweb, a UK-based hosting provider will also deploy the Hosted Microsoft Messaging and Collaboration solution.