Friday, August 27, 2010

BPOS vs Zimbra for Hosted Email

I tried to get a client signed up for a BPOS Hosted Exchange account.  I'm a Telstra T-Suite and BPOS reseller and have completed all the relevant paperwork for this, and using the Telstra T-Suite/BPOS online signup procedure, I signed up a client, the client (and I) received the relevant "Thank you for placing your order with T-Suite®, which we are currently processing" email on 13th August at 12:10 PM.  And nothing else - the account still isn't provisioned, or at least I haven't been told it has been provisioned, even after asking how Microsoft/Telstra count their "12-72 hours provisioning time".

So, after a call from the client, I decided that we'd forget BPOS and its 12-72 hou^H^H^Hday provisioning time and I'd look for alternatives.

So, now, this client is using a hosted Zimbra email solution.  It took a whole 2 minutes from me starting to fill out the online application to having it working and confirmed by logging in on my iPhone to test.  Impressive!  :)

Not to mention that the price of this is US$50/user/year for a 25GB mailbox.

BPOS, somewhere more than a fortnight to provision and AU$10/user/month (ie, AU$119.40/user/year) or Zimbra with nigh on immediate provisioning, full Exchange, Outlook and ActiveSync functionality and US$50/user/year.  The choice is yours!  :)


Regards,

The Outspoken Wookie

8 comments:

Anonymous said...

I can't understand this post - "BPOS Hosted Exchange"? There's BPOS, and there's Hosted Exchange; they are different things. Hosted Exchange is Exchange hosted by a Microsoft Partner; BPOS is offered directly by Microsoft as part of its Microsoft Online offering. While Partners can sell BPOS and assist with it, the sign-up procedure can be done directly with Microsoft Online, and provisioning is instant, and the whole procedure is simple and works extremely well - I've done it several times.

Hilton Travis said...

There's 2 things you're obviously not aware of, as I can tell from your comment. 1. BPOS is a collection of components, with Exchange being one of those components - you don't need the rest of the BPOS components if the client only needs Exchange for now. 2. In Australia, you *MUST* go thru Telstra T-Suite to use BPOS - there's no other option.

Provisioning, according to Telstra, takes between 12 and 72 hours. In Australia, thanks to Telstra, the sign up procedure is far from instantaneous.

The procedure isn't complicated, but when it fails - and down here I know that this is most definitely not the first time there's been complaints as to how slow BPOS takes to provision through the Telstra T-Suite, it fails. And fail it did.

Having said that, my client is now a happy Zimbra client. :)

Anonymous said...

Can you tell us who was the hosted Zimbra provider? I am investigating BPOS through Telstra and Google Apps for a client at the moment. Zimbra might be a good alternative.

Hilton Travis said...

I used 01.com - they have been around for some time and seem to be one of the bigger Hosted Zimbra providers.

Email Hosting said...

great info on hosted exchange and BPOS. Makes it a lot clearer now. Thx

Hosted Zimbra said...

There does seem to be quite a deabte as to which is the best communications suite to use: Google apps, MS Exchange server, or Zimbra; It was the first (and possibly last) time I had heard of BPOS.

Hosted Email said...

Has anyone tested the hosted zimbra system on Android phones? Would be nice to have any comments if possible.

Hilton Travis said...

I've not actually had the opportunity to use an Android phone, but if they have an Activesync component to connect to Exchange, I can't see how they wouldn't also connect to a Zimbra server as they use the same protocol (just like on an iPhone).