Client Story: Implementing company email via the cloud as a low TCO, low maintenance solution

SMB Client was at the point of purchasing a new email server solution. Additionally they wanted to integrate email, calendar, etc. with Smartphone devices for upper management and their mobile sales force.  Finally, due to concerns over security & legal discovery exposure the client wanted to implement a solution that would allow for archiving of ALL email traffic, off of the primary system.  Looking at the traditional buy the servers, buy the software, cross train or hire resource to manage server & technologies.  The client knew that they had to do this email platform upgrade but given the estimated costs of this endeavor the client had concerns as they had other discretionary initiatives on the table with high potential ROI, etc.  Given the economy they were reluctant to commit a significant $$$ value for a multiple server based solution that may/may not be elastically scalable with the company. 

Our approach:  Breaking the requirements down into smaller segments: secure private email administration, calendar syncronization, integration with Smartphone devices, archiving of all email traffic for security & legal discovery matters. Elasticity to easily grow and contract with the business in this economy. Low TCO - freeing up company resources to work on other initiatives.  For sake of disclosure and comparison this particular client had approximately 100 employees and about 20 generic email addresses that were auto-forwarded to various departments or individuals.

Quick Solution:  For a low annual per email address cost the client's email solution was hosted via a Cloud Email Solution.  This solution managed the servers, provided a reasonable uptime SLA and also provided automatic integration with individual's Smartphone devices (20-40 users) without the need for a Blackberry Enterprise Server (BES).  Additionally the email managment solution provided for all emails, in and out, to be archived or presented to another system for archiving.  All of this was managed from an easy to understand web-based control panel.  Estimated Annual Cost of this segment of the solution for 100 users: $5-6K/year.  Estimated cost of the HW (Servers & Storage), SW Licensing, SW Support costs and payroll of a company resource to manage - Easilly over 10x that figure.

Summary:  In this economy and in a time when company's IT Budgets are stuck in ZERO percent growth these types of targeted solutions can be a huge benefit.  Not only is it cost effective demonstrating a hard cost savings that any CFO can agree with it also frees up company human resources to potentially work on other initiatives.  Zombie Data has incorporated this exact solution internally - talk with us about the benefits of this low maintenance, low TCO solution.