In his characteristic cheeky manner, the (mysterious) VAR guy wrote an article about how Exchange 2010 ties into Microsoft's main SaaS offering - BPOS. He checked out the current version of BPOS, and noticed that Exchange Online still seemed to be working on Exchange 2007. So the obvious question - When will Exchange 2010 arrive for BPOS?

Here are some answers the Var guy got from an MS spokesperson:-

1) When will Exchange Online be moved to Exchange 2010?

A. Exchange Online is updated quarterly, and BPOS users can expect the platform to be upgraded to Exchange 2010 sometime next year.

2) What about SharePoint 2010?

A. Same. Next year.

3) Will there ever come a time when the SaaS versions of MS products will be upgraded simultaneously with its on-premise releases?

A. Yes

The above creates an obvious opening for treasure hunters. Till Microsoft offers hosted Exchange 2010 and SharePoint 2010, it is a ripe market for someone to try and explore. 

Microsoft recently announced it was going to make substantial price cuts to the recently introduced SaaS versions of its on premise productivity software. Microsoft BPOS, a combined package of SharePoint Online, Exchange Online and LiveMeeting, which was introduced at a price of $15 per user per month, now stands at $10 per month. The price of Exchange Online standalone has been reduced from $10 to $5, and that of SharePoint Online reduced from $7.25 to $5.25. The prices of other offerings under Microsoft Online Services remain more or less the same.

Some view this as a move by Microsoft to preempt the growing clout of  Google Apps in the enterprise domain. But as expected, Microsoft officials denied that the price cut is in response to competition from Google Apps. They attributed the cuts to “rapid customer adoption, global scale and improved efficiencies from new software such as Exchange Server 2010″. Microsoft officials have also raised doubts about Google's claim of having 2 million enteprise customers for Google Apps, questioning how many of these were paying customers. 

The most important question. On the face of it, this price cut by Microsoft makes its hosted productivity offerings a lot more viable for small and mid sized businesses.

Think again.

BPOS is a refurbished version of SharePoint and Exchange, Microsoft's traditional on premise software solutions. Both Exchange and SharePoint have been mainly crafted for the enterprise segment, and the hosted SaaS versions retain some of that legacy. Because of this reason, they retain some of the complexity and their feature set is somewhat of an overkill for the small to medium sized business segment. In all probability the implementing company will have to hire consultants to help with the implementation process. These are extra costs that have to be factored into the decision. The varguy reported one company had made $167 per seat providing implementation, training and other services for BPOS.Is it a wonder then that Microsoft is pushing BPOS through its partner network?

HyperOffice did a good comparison of Microsoft BPOS and Google Apps, which gives you a good "total cost" comparison. They have also positioned themselves as a third alternative for smaller businesses.

It is always great to have your thoughts echoed by a well known research organization. According to Gartner research vice president Matt Cain "one of the largest sectors of the software-as-a-service (SaaS) model is email services, an especially attractive option for small businesses". 

In a recent crn.com article, it was reported that during a talk at the Everything Channel Midsize Enterprise Summit West conference on Monday, Cain highlighted the growing popularity of the SaaS email model.

"There's been more change in the last year-and-a-half for email than there has been in the last 19 years," Cain said. "Most organizations over time will be moving away from local storage and email."

SaaS email solutions are particularly valuable for small businesses, which often do not have the IT resources to customize or maintain complicated technology - the flexible pay-as-you-go structure is especially important, as it can reduce their IT and even energy costs.

However, once the email system becomes more complicated - such as with larger companies that have stringent security or integration needs - the hosted model becomes less feasible.

Cain said that over time that will change, as the SaaS model matures further, but for now small businesses are the ideal SaaS email clients. 

Well, this is exactly our position. And going a step further, I would like to assert that small businesses will not just be looking for SaaS services, but a bundle of email and collaboration tools. This is because of the interrelatedness of collaboration tools and email, and the fact that companies are becoming more and more used to applying SaaS collaboration tools for day to day work. This accounts for the emergence of integrated messaging and collaboration suites like Google Apps and Microsoft BPOS. However, online collaboration software vendors like HyperOffice, which offer integrated solutions, and have a good foothold in the small business niche shall find themselves in a position of strength. 

In the past few weeks, the online tech journalism brigade proved that, well, rules of journalism continue to apply. Demigods were created, and brought down, all in the span of a week. Google's new Google App Sync plug-in was described in not so subtle terms as a "potential Microsoft Exchange killer" or Google's intentions described as "Google goes for Microsoft's jugular". Well, desperate that we online scribes are, we cant but help go a little overboard in the attempt to capture your, the reader's, eyeballs.

Well, the euphoria didn't last long. The Google App Sync tool, which already had glaring shortcomings in terms of functionality (it does not allow for task synchronization), soon started sputtering and coughing, after a smooth start. It was found that it interfered with Outlook's search, as well as with any third party plug in that might be installed with Outlook. The formerly fawning crowds didn't take long to describe Google's new tool as "seriously flawed", "impaired" and admitting that it "kills Outlook search".

The lesson learnt here is, killing MS Exchange, the juggernaut of enterprise messaging is not going to be easy. Moreover, a new software aiming for the big prize, will need some time to get rid of bugs and stabilize. The Google App Sync tool has some way to go yet. And there are other problems that might be hurdles in it winning over the enteprise market.

1) It allows only synching of mail, contacts and calendars and does not allow task synching.  

2) The design of Google's online client is drastically different from MS Outlook, leading to dissonance as people using Outlook as the desktop client need to go online to access their accounts.

Companies looking for a Microsoft Exchange alternative needn't lose heart.There are some very good options, especially for small to medium sized businesses. HyperOffice is one such example, which offers a robust, stable alternative to Exchange, developed over years of experience. HyperOffice is an online messaging and collaboration suite, which allows users the option to work from within their Outlook accounts. It acts as a backend for Outlook and allows users access to most popular MS Exchange features - business mail, shared calendars/contacts/tasks, web mail access and mobile mail access etc. 

Microsoft recently released the beta version of the next generation of its popular enterprise messaging product - Microsoft Exchange. Titled Exchange 2010, the product claims to be a major improvement over the last generation of Exchange, Exchange 2007. A commentator very aptly said "The new version of Exchange is light on new features and heavy on refinements". Microsoft also released the next version of the web version of its front end desktop mail client Outlook - OWA (Outlook Web Access). It is said that OWA 2010 makes up for some glaring omissions in the previous version of OWA, namely the ability to operate across multiple browsers on different operating systems.

Since this is a growing business focused blog, these products remain ever out of the reach of our focus audience, because of the tremendous costs. Although OWA does seem a major improvement over the previous version of OWA, which was sub standard at best, it still loses out on alternate messaging products like HyperOffice, since they also offer integrated collaboration features. It would be interesting to see if some kind of integration is possible between OWA 2010 and SharePoint portals.