Tuesday, May 5, 2009

Cemaphore: New Cloud-Based Options for Growing, Protecting, and Reducing the Costs of Microsoft Exchange Deployments

Cemaphore is a company that appears to have cracked the code for painless synchronization of multiple editions of Microsoft Exchange with Google's Gmail and Google Apps. This is important because that means Cemaphore's technologies can be used to provide seamless, reliable back-up of business-critical Exchange deployments, whether premises-based or hosted. It also means users seeking to reduce e-mail licensing costs can use hosted Exchange and/or Gmail as alternatives and/or adjuncts to Exchange Server, while providing a seamless experience to all using or managing e-mail at an enterprise.

This week, Cemaphore announced a new combination of Microsoft Business Productivity Online Suite offerings with Cemaphore's MailShadow OnLine e-mail migration and synchronization solution. Editions include Microsoft Exchange Online Deskless Worker (Outlook Web Access Light plus a 500-megabyte mailbox) combined with MailShadow OnLine for $7 per user per month, and Exchange Online (Microsoft Office Outlook 2007 plus a 5-gigabyte mailbox) combined with MailShadow OnLine for $13.24 per user per month through June 30, 2009. Other plans also available, Cemaphore said.

Business technology decision-makers have frequently faced frustrating and unsatisfying choices when trying to choose among Exchange Server, some hosted Exchange alternative, and cloud-based e-mail and collaboration solutions other than Exchange. Cemaphore gives those decision-makers and the users they support greater flexibility to mix and match multiple alternatives, without imposing undue inconsistencies upon collaboration users or managers. Anyone pursuing or considering new or expanded Microsoft Exchange deployments should look closely at Cemaphore's offerings, for opportunities to improve reliability and availability of collaboration tools while lowering deployment and management costs and complexities. And once you have looked at Cemaphore and its solutions, do please let me know what you think.