Making the change to remote work?
We're happy to help you stay connected

Learn more

How to choose between Office 365 and hosted Exchange for your business email

Technological advancements and the pace of business have transformed the way companies conduct day-to-day operations. Organizations need access to a more robust, reliable, scalable, and cost-effective IT solution than what is typically available with traditional on-premises IT systems. For most, this means moving to the cloud, and it is especially true for SMBs who have unique IT infrastructure needs, limited dedicated IT resources, less up-front capital, or no resilience to downtime.

However, choosing the right cloud is extremely important. The first step usually involves evaluating two different solutions — Microsoft® Office 365® and hosted Exchange. Each offers all of the benefits of the cloud, but also provides a range of different feature sets. Let’s take a look at each of these cloud email options:

Office 365

Office 365 is quickly becoming the go-to productivity tool for many businesses. Office 365 pairs enterprise-grade email together with a suite of productivity services including Office, Skype® for Business, SharePoint® and more, making it a great all-in-one solution for businesses of all sizes. Mobile-focused, it extends remote employees all of the benefits of these productivity tools at all times.

With Office 365, companies never have to pay for version upgrades of applications again, as they automatically receive the latest version of Office with updates included. Additional benefits of Office 365 include:

  • 99.9% uptime SLA
  • Full suite of services including business grade email, Office suite, Skype for Business and more
  • Always up-to-date versions of applications
  • Choice between a variety of business- and enterprise-grade plans, with the ability to mix and match
  • Ability to enhance Office 365 with 6 integrated services from Intermedia including file backup, email archiving and email continuity

Exchange

Exchange Email (also known as hosted Exchange) offers benefits similar to the above, but is an alternative for customers who may not want or like Office 365. Exchange Email is great for customers whose main priority is enterprise email, with limited focus or need for other additional applications. These customers require additional functionality and reliability over the “off-the-shelf” bundles that Office 365 provides. For example, companies with over 500 users may need a customized cloud and can opt for a single-tenant dedicated environment.

Companies who want to build their own suite of services will appreciate the flexibility that Exchange Email provides, allowing them to add only the services that their business needs. Additional benefits of Exchange Email from Intermedia include:

Office 365 and Exchange Email from Intermedia

Whether you choose Office 365 or Exchange Email from Intermedia, customers will receive exceptional value, enterprise-grade security, and J.D Power-certified 24/7 technical support. Our Worry-Free Experience™ includes complementary white-glove onboarding and migration performed by a team of Cloud Concierge™ experts, and much more.

 

Office in the Cloud, Cloud Concierge, and Worry-Free Experience are trademarks of Intermedia.net, Inc. in the United States and/or other countries. Microsoft, Office 365, Skype, and SharePoint are either registered trademarks or trademarks of Microsoft Corporation in the United States and/or other countries. J.D. Power 2016 Certified Assisted Technical Program, developed in conjunction with TSIA. Based on successful completion of an audit and exceeding a customer satisfaction benchmark for assisted support operations. For more information, visit www.jdpower.com or www.tsia.com.

Learn more about Intermedia's Office 365 and Exchange Email solutions, and our other 30+ business applications for SMBs

Learn More

About The Intermedia Team

Intermedia helps over 135,000 businesses connect better – through voice, video conferencing, chat, contact center, business email and productivity, file sharing and backup, security, archiving, and more – from wherever, whenever. And, as a partner-first company, Intermedia goes to work for over 7,300 channel partners to help them grow their revenue and maximize their success.