As mentioned, there is considerable variation in the solutions provided by various hosted Exchange companies. Every possible permutation of features, space, users, costs & extras is available in the market. A number of things need to be considered to keep grounded and wade through the mass of advertising messages. Broadly these are:

• Exchange features (mail, spam guard, shared contacts, shared calendars, shared tasks, shared folders, mobile & web access).
• Outlook compatibility - the ability to set up and synchronize with an Outlook mail account without Exchange and share outlook calendars, contacts and tasks.
• Additional collaboration features (document management, intranet/extranet publisher, forums, instant messaging etc.)
• Overall integratable features within the solution, & user friendliness.
• Space provided, & users allowed (this is often the main differentiator) all need to be considered in tandem, and a balance needs to be struck in light of needs.
• Cost!

Importantly, all these factors need to be weighed in light of company needs. It makes sense to develop a weighted score of each solution.

A comprehensive comparison of prominent offerings is given under. Brief profiles of these companies are added at the end.

Features Comparison

	Intermedia	HyperOffice	Asp One	MailStreet	Sherweb
Standard Exchange Features
Email
Custom Email Domain					Paid
Unlimited Aliases
Web Client
Spam Protection			Basic	Paid
Virus Protection			Basic
IMAP/POP3 Support
Outlook Support & Synching
Outlook Web Access
Multiple Browser Support
Mobile Access	Paid			Some
Blackberry Sync	Paid		Paid	Paid	Paid
Mac Support
Shared Information
Shared Contacts
Shared Calendaring
Task Management		Advanced (Graphic)
Collaboration Features
Document Management
Shared Folders	**				*
Document Collaboration
File Locking
Versioning
Notifications
Audit Trail
Virtual Drives
Intranet/Extranet Publishing
Custom pages for employees, depts., teams					*
Client, partner, vendor portals
Turn Sections on/off
Content Management/Customization
Publish/Manage content on Intranet/Extranet					*
Standard Templates					*
Complete web site customization
Extras
Voting					*
Forums					*
Shared Links
Backups					*
Free Live Support & Training					ticketing

* Space allowed for Sherweb SharePoint features in 100 MB ** Space allowed for Intermedia's SharePoint features is 50 MB

Quick Takes

Asp One – Asp One is a no frills solution. Its strength lies in offering only Exchange features - nothing more nothing less.

MailStreet – Like Asp One, this solution sticks to its guns, concentrating on providing only core Exchange functionality. This is perhaps understandable because both MailStreet & Asp One are owned by the same company Apptix.

HyperOffice – My personal favorite. Offers the most comprehensive feature set, which is well integrated, and easy to understand and use. Offers almost the entire range of popular collaboration tools, in addition to Exchange features. Shared contact, task and calendaring solutions go even beyond basic Exchange functionality. Outlook integration is easy as a pie. You can easily set up an Outlook mail account and automatically synchronize it with webmail and mobile mail and share Outlook calendars, contacts and tasks with colleagues and partners.

SherWeb – A good solution from a cost benefit perspective. The cheapest of the lot, and yet it offers a wide range of smart collaboration features in addition to core Exchange functionality.

Intermedia – It is mainly a hosted MS Exchange services provider. SharePoint hosting is added as an extra. As far as I know, only document management features are allowed, and only 50 MB storage space are provided for SharePoint. For the entire feature set and additional space, add on “SharePoint” packages need to be purchased. A set up cost is also involved at most stages. My main reaction is – pricey!!