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Exchange Server Feature Comparison with Exchange Online Cloud-hosted unified communications
Unified communications is one technology trend that is seeing growth in nearly every business vertical. With an increased need for real-time communication and collaboration in order to stay competitive in business, organizations are turning to services such as Microsoft Exchange to improve anywhere access to key information, calendaring, and corporate communication.
While Microsoft Exchange Server 2007 and 2010 are great investments for businesses seeking to host their own e-mail servers on-premise or through other virtualized services (not always positive ROI), hosting Exchange on Microsoft’s servers in a cloud environment helps businesses to cut costs through more uptime, less server maintenance, and easier, anywhere access to Exchange services.
Exchange Online is available as a monthly subscription from Microsoft Online Services for $5 per user per month as a standalone service or as a part of the BPOS Suite of Services for $10 per user per month.
Whether choosing Exchange Online simply to cut costs from licenses or bring anywhere access to your organization, the benefits of switching to a cloud-hosted Exchange Server offers powerful 99.9% uptime and faster servers. Exchange Online still integrates with Outlook for seamless e-mail messaging and calendaring, but organizations are quickly discovering the ROI from anywhere access to information when and where it is needed.
Below is a comparison of the different features offered by Exchange Online in relation to dedicated or Exchange Server.
Feature |
Exchange Server 2007 |
Deskless Worker1 |
Exchange Online Standard |
Exchange Online Dedicated |
Default mailbox size |
N/A |
500 MB |
25 GB |
25 GB |
Larger mailbox availability |
N/A |
|
Yes |
Yes |
Shared contacts, tasks |
Yes |
Yes |
Yes |
Yes |
Message attachment |
Yes |
Yes |
Yes |
Yes |
Deleted item retention |
Yes |
Yes |
Yes |
Yes |
Conference room |
Yes |
Yes |
Yes |
Yes |
99.9% uptime SLA |
N/A |
Yes |
Yes |
Yes |
24x7 Web/phone IT pro support |
N/A |
Yes |
Yes |
Yes |
Geo redundancy data protection |
N/A |
Yes |
Yes |
Yes |
Public folders |
Yes |
|
|
Yes |
Feature |
Exchange Server 2007 |
Deskless Worker |
Exchange Online Standard |
Exchange Online Dedicated |
Antivirus/antispam |
Yes |
Yes |
Yes |
Yes |
Rights Management Service 2 |
Yes |
|
Future |
Future |
Mail encryption (optional) |
Yes |
Yes |
Yes |
Yes |
E-discovery archive (optional) |
Yes |
Yes |
Yes |
Yes |
Personal archive (optional) |
Yes |
|
Yes |
Yes |
Messaging records management |
Yes |
|
Future |
Yes |
Feature |
Exchange Server 2007 |
Deskless Worker |
Exchange Online Standard |
Exchange Online Dedicated |
MAPI |
Yes |
|
|
Yes |
Exchange WebDAV |
Yes |
|
|
Yes |
SMTP Relay |
Yes |
|
Future |
Yes |
Exchange Web Services |
Yes |
|
Yes |
Yes |
POP3/IMAP4 |
Yes |
|
Future |
Yes |
Feature |
Exchange Server 2007 |
Deskless Worker |
Exchange Online Standard |
Exchange Online Dedicated |
Outbound Fax |
Yes |
|
|
Yes |
Voicemail Integration |
Yes |
|
Future |
Future |
Outlook Voice Access |
Yes |
|
Future |
Future | |