Microsoft’s BPOS: Cloud Computing’s Silver Lining?

[synthalas]

DONT DO IT!!! BPOS HAS SOOOOO MANY ISSUES!!!

We are in the process of making the swap and are quickly retreating....

Took a week to get our BPOS site up and running (were they building the network in the background?) thought this was a cloud environment....

Once we had it our SharePoint contacts would not integrate with Outlook like they were supposed to so no corporate contacts...

oh yea and we still havent been able to speak with a tech at microsoft who understands the BPOS setup and functionality....

So far we have had nothing but trouble...might be ok for smaller companies....like .5 people, but for any legitimate company stay away....

Microsoft if using everyone as BETA fodder for their BPOS solution....pay to test their ***....oooh wait thats how all their *** works...my bad...

 

[Guest]

when you actually look at the ROI for using BPOS it will start to make more sense. On average most small to med tech savvy businesses hosting Exchange internally will need to replace or upgrade their servers every 5-6 years. Migrating from 2003 Exchange to 2007 Exchange will cost on average about 10-15K (if done correctly). Same thing for migrating from 2007 to 2010. So if every 5 years I need to spend around 10-15K on hardware and based on the number of users (around 50 for most med. sized businesses) around 300/user for CAL and software. You are now at around 20-30K. Which equates to around 120/yr/user for using Exchange...and does not include Sharepoint, Live Meeting, or Office Communication.
Now look at BPOS or any other fuly featured hosted suite. Even if the amount were to remain the same at 120/yr/user just the addition of the extra features would be enough to sell it.... Factor in the admin time saved, AntiSpam licensing costs saved, mail bagging cost saved, continuous upgrades to the latest versions, and 99.9999 SLA. OMG you would be a fool not to consider a hosted cloud service. Anyone care to dispute the enormous savings over 5 yrs time?

 

[sukatash06]

When it comes to BPOS, "Caveat Emptor"!

If you are a small mom and pop shop with a few users then it makes sense for you to be on BPOS since your messaging demands are minimal. But, BPOS is not ready for an enterprise deployment. We began to move people from an on premise messaging system and the initial cost for 150 people has been about $500,000.000, that is right 500 K just to get to a point were we can use it. Then there all the bugs, glitches and lack of support from Microsoft. As I said we have roughly 150 people currently on BPOS and it has been a nightmare, the number of helpdesk support calls has gone thought the roof. there have been ongoing problems from first user creation to passwords resets, to delegation and the most troubling of all are missing emails that Microsoft can not tell use where they are or why they are missing. Can your enterprise business survive missing critical emails? 10 years ago maybe, but today I doubt it.

Management or Corporate Board of directors might buy the BS Microsoft sales pitch and all the pretty slide shows illustrating the return on investment with a move to BPOS. They will convince not technical mangers of all the great features and befits of BPOS, continually tauting the ultimate savings with a move to BPOS but think again. Microsoft is in the money making business and any additional services you need are ala-carte. With BPOS standard you get email and messaging hygiene, that is it nothing more. No archiving, no IM, no sharepoint.
Microsoft sales people will tout that they have large businesses, the FEDS, state and local governments on BPOS, but that is just a sales fabrication. There are corporations and both local and state government who are looking into BPOS but the reality is that these entities are NOT on BPOS, they are 'evaluating' the product and have not committed to BPOS.
to give a further example of the costs, in our environment we have had to add additional staff just to manage the high number of end user support problems relating to BPOS for just 150 people. And these are not end user 'how-to' problems, there are actual BPOS related bugs not user generated. As I previously mentioned we have maybe 1% of our total enduser population on BPOS and the cost to date has been about $500K not including the additional support staff.
Try opening a ticket with Microsoft BPOS support and you get a guy in India who more often than not you can barely understand and calling you back at times when you will not be at work. But before you even get a call back, you first receive a canned auto-generated email from BPOS support asking if the problem still persists and if they can close the ticket before tech actually looks at your ticket. The canned email also always suggests that you download their MOSDAL (Microsoft Online Services Diagnostics and Logging)tool to help troubleshoot your local network since more often that not according to Microsoft, the problem you are experiencing will be with your internal network or client.
As for the open tickets, if no one from Microsoft is not able to contact the ticket local owner, they will close your incident after three contact attempts.

If you have any influence on the technical decision, do your homework before you commit to BPOS. As I said BPOS makes sense if you are a small business without a complex messaging environment, but for an enterprise class messaging environment BPOS is not the solution. From our experience as a large enterprise starting the move to BPOS is a technological regression. You will be paying Microsoft to be their BETA tester.

 

[Guest]

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[Guest]

When are the smart businesses going to realize that all these technology VPs/Execs are outsourcing Email just to put it on their professional resume? "I took XYZ-business into the cloud and saved millions". Here's the truth behind what those VPs really did: "I intentionally led XYZ company down a more costly and less reliable path for my own personal gain. I convinced them that this would be cheaper by looking only at the 1- or 2-year discounted price and we just ignored what the cost will be in two or three years down the road. The cloud provider didn't really lay out all the pricing up front, and even though the cost planning clearly leaves key issues un-addressed, I didn't ask about them. Like they used to say in the military - Don't ask, don't tell. XYZ-vendor also gave me some great kickbacks and why would I say no to that? After we get migrated into this cloud offering service won't be anywhere near as good as XYZ vendor promised, and it will cost us millions to email back on premise, but oh well, I'll be gone by then. Heck my superiors will probably brush this under the carpet because my poor judgement would reflect poorly on them. All is good, I never have to face consquences." Directors, Managers, Engineers: you've likely been with your business for many many years. Do not let some new VP/Exec come in and destroy a company that you have grown to love over the years. Remember, with Exchange, you can always do it cheaper than someone else who wants to be the middle man and do the exact same thing you were already doing before. Corporate Board Members: if you care about your profits, then don't let your CIOs/CTOs come in and notch their belt at the expense of your corporations investors.