Best Hosted Exchange Providers

As your business grows, it is quite obvious that you need a simple but robust solution to keep your staff internally connected with each other. That system needs to be patched and upgraded periodically to take advantage of new features. The servers they run on need maintenance contracts for fast part replacement when they fail, and those systems need their OS and Firmware patched regularly to keep them performing? Is the environment secured? Are backups really working?!?!?

As a business owner you have to ask yourself if you really want to build a competency around ensuring your critical email systems are running at all time, or do you want to build competencies around using email as a tool to respond to prospects and serve clients?

First, most alleged review sites are loaded with links that have affiliate codes in them. Their sole purpose is to collect a referral fee when you sign up with any of the Exchange hosting providers they link to. Hardly unbiased or authoritative. Hence no affiliate links are here. So here are several things for you to consider when making your choice:

1) Does every one of your email boxes need to be on the same expensive plan? Some hosted email providers allow you to choose a big plan for executives, a slighter smaller plan for most staff, and then an Outlook Web Access (OWA) plan for contractors and remote staff. This can save you significantly on your monthy fees.
2) Migration : moving PST files, public folders, and MX records can be daunting for many firms. However, some of the hosted exchange providers will actually do this for you for free. For some of you, this may weigh heavily.
3) Is their hosting location(s) outside of natural disaster locations? This is one of the reasons you are hosting, remember.
4) How are you going to migrate your email to them? How easy are their tools? Some hosting firms will do this for you for free or inexpensively.
5) Is the platform they are selling the latest (e.g. Exchange Server 2010). You would be surprised that some of the big providers still are on Exchangee 2007. It would be fooling to migrate to old technology.
6) Are there many complaints when you google for "____ reviews" ?
7) Are their support support staff in the US and/or can you understand them on the phone? When you are having an issue, there is nothing more frustrating than a non-native English language support person.
8) Do they nickel and dime for everything from ADSync to Email Dislaimers

Feel free to suggest other criteria to me; I would love to add to this.

1) Look for an exchange hosting provider who can ensure efficiency and reliability.. You must check the previous uptime charts of their service to measure reliability in general. Higher uptime percentage indicates stronger reliability of exchange hosting services. If your hosting provider does not ensure 99.9% uptime, you must avoid using it. Even your hosting provider says they provide 99.9% uptime; ask them to include it in your exchange hosting contract. Furthermore, look for a FINANCIALLY BACKED SLA!
2) Your hosting provider must have a team of experts. They must have the intrinsic knowledge of Exchange. To ensure this, make sure they are Microsoft Gold Certified for Hosting (not just Microsoft Gold Certified). Microsoft ensures that their certified partners provide exemplary exchange hosting services to their clients. It is very essential that you should choose a trusted exchange hosting provider. You can even ask your hosting vendor about the professional capabilities of their team.
3) Being a smaller company does not matter, but your hosting exchange provider must provide you 24 hours round the clock support services. You can only reap total benefits from exchange hosting for your business if you have round the clock support by your vendor.