Mike has asked
- What is the best hosted exchange service?
- How do you set it up?
While I have been thinking of setting up a hosted exchange, I have not really decided to do it yet. So, I do not have a good answer for him. (I have heard good things about MailStreet and am thinking of trying them out).
I tried Googling for some answers on this and came up with several worthless articles. I am sure there are some good articles to be found, but none of them hit the front page of my searches.
Any of you have experience in this area, good or bad, to share with Mike and the rest of us who are interested in this? Update: Thomas has provided some Great info in the comments section below. Anyone else have some pointers for Mike?
{ 2 comments… read them below or add one }
Thomas R. Hall 08.04.07 at 5:57 pm
I think the answer depends on what Mike is wanting to set up. I’m going to provide some high-level details for Outlook and a Pocket PC, but there are other options as well (BlackBerry, Entourage, etc.). Unfortunately, I’m away from my computer right now, so this is going to be basic.
In Outlook, in the account setup area, you choose Exchange and put in the settings provided by your hosted Exchange provider. In fact, most of the have detailed instructions on how to set this up. MailStreet, for example, creates a PDF with your specific account information already in the PDF! After setup, items already in Outlook are synchronized to your Exchange account.
For PocketPC, you edit your ActiveSync settings either directly on your PocketPC or via ActiveSync on your Windows machine and enter in the settings. You can change the schedule as well, if you want to save battery life, for instance.
As for which one to use, I think I may have put some information in a comment on a previous post here, but the three people seem to like are MailStreet (my current provider), 4Smartphone.net, and The Message Center. For example, from JKOnTheRun, James uses MailStreet, but Kevin uses 4Smartphone. I know a lot of people that are happy with The Message Center, and they are mainly BlackBerry users (The Message Center is the official hosting partner for RIM, according to TMC’s site). I may move to them because they do automated BlackBerry provisioning, where MailStreet requires you call in or submit a ticket. You don’t do this often, so it’s not too big a deal. TMC offers more storage, it seems. Also, if you want a name you’ve heard of, RackSpace now does hosted Exchange.
Most of the providers offer a trial period. Give it a shot. I think you’ll love it, Mike. Sorry for any typos - I’m posting this from my PocketPC Phone Edition device.
Bruce 08.04.07 at 6:07 pm
Great input, Thomas. And super job posting from your Pocket PC Phone Edition device, too.