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24x7 SUPPORT MEANS THE SAME THING FOR EVERY PROVIDER

There is a world of difference between having access to a help desk operator and having access to people who can actually fix your problem right then and there. We provide knowledgeable and dedicated support teams in the Birchwood Network Operations Center around the clock. Not simply tier 1 help desk operators, like many of our competitors, but dedicated Technical Account Managers, trained Microsoft® Exchange messaging engineers; professional personnel who know the systems, know the issues, and most important — know the answers.


SERVICE LEVEL AGREEMENTS ARE ALL THE SAME

You deserve a level of service that matches the Service Level Agreement. But unfortunately, that's not always the case with other hosted email providers. For example, if uptime is missed, and you complain — other service providers may simply offer a discount — not a better level of service! Whereas, at Birchwood we design and architect your individualized email hosting solution to meet your criteria and SLA.

For example, we follow a stringent, ongoing self-monitoring protocol, and report on a regular basis. In fact all SLA reports are readily available to our customers online. What's more, our monitoring and reporting process is SAS 70 Type II audited for accuracy and effectiveness. It's a plan that's designed to succeed!

IN-HOUSE EMAIL IS LESS EXPENSIVE THAN EMAIL HOSTING

The truth: labor makes up approximately two-thirds of SMB messaging costs* and those IT personnel dedicated to messaging infrastructure represent lost productivity in other IT areas. There are also upgrades to both hardware and software, training, and maintenance. In fact, the real costs of in-house messaging are significantly higher for small and medium sized businesses (SMBs) than for enterprises — and typically run significantly higher than an outsourced solution.

Beyond that, utilizing a business email hosting provider like Birchwood yields actual cost advantages and no capital expenditures. Birchwood provides predictable monthly costs and our customers enjoy the benefits of upgrading. For example our customers are upgrading to Exchange 2007 with no additional charges.


SWITCHING FROM IN-HOUSE TO HOSTED EMAIL WILL BE DIFFICULT

We understand your trepidation about migrating your existing system into a new one, but we'll make it easy; before, during and after. We've migrated over two million mailboxes to our email hosting solution. We'll work closely with you to provide project management, technical coordination and implementation services — all at the level that you need. Our deployment and migration plans are built around one core concept — the business needs of our clients.

You'll feel good knowing that Birchwood has supported migrations for businesses of every size including transitions from Microsoft Mail, Lotus Notes®, cc:Mail, GroupWise®, prior versions of Exchange, and other platforms with POP and IMAP protocols. We make switching to an email hosting solution easy, so that you can feel the benefits right away!

SWITCHING FROM ANOTHER EMAIL HOSTING PROVIDER WILL BE DIFFICULT

Relax, Birchwood will make your transition quick, easy, and most of all — effortless. Here's how: First of all we utilize a Professional Services Engineer who works as your personal liaison between your legacy provider and Birchwood, handling all the technical aspects of the move. Secondly, we will work with your current email provider to make the transition smooth and successful. We give you the tools, training and support to help you make the transition on your end. In all, we go above and beyond the industry standard practice and make it our practice to take the worry out of switching email service providers!

I HAVE LESS CONTROL WITH EXCHANGE HOSTING

To the contrary — you receive complete control, reliability and predictability. It's your email — you're in charge! Birchwood makes it easy through our best-of-breed Web-based provisioning and administrations tools. Choose from three different levels of Microsoft Exchange hosting services, plus a wide range of enhanced services. You'll be able to add, delete, and edit user information, plus manage administrative settings from a single location. You can quickly provision new mailboxes, adjust storage, add mobility services to a user and grant privileges from our easy-to-use Web-based administration tool. Even without Exchange administration experience, your staff will be able to completely manage your email. Quickly, easily, and in real-time. It's actually more control — at deeper levels and with more flexibility — within your organization!

Customize your email hosting solution by choosing the most appropriate level of service, then add enhanced services like integration with wireless devices, encryption, instant messaging (IM), and many more as your needs grow. Because one size…does not fit all!

MY DATA IS SAFER AND MORE SECURE UNDER MY OWN ROOF

While larger companies with robust, well financed IT departments often boast comprehensive in-house email security, the same is seldom true for smaller organizations. They may be good at some of these security elements, but smaller organizations rarely have the time, money or resources to excel at all of them. To achieve the higher levels of security needed for today's "Wild West" Internet, small and medium sized businesses, and even enterprises, are migrating toward hosted email providers, particularly those offering Microsoft Exchange hosting.

To provide the end-to-end security required by today's growing businesses against spam, viruses and phishing, Birchwood utilizes multiple, overlapping layers of security; an "information security triad" consisting of expertise in the areas of people, processes, and technology. With Birchwood you leverage the technology that we use for Fortune 50 enterprises — ensuring top-quality security no matter your size. In effect, you get a multi-million dollar infrastructure. Download a white paper, Security Best Practices: What to Look for in an Email Hosting Provider, to learn more about the steps email hosting solution providers need to take to correctly secure your vital assets.

ALL DATA CENTERS ARE SAFE

Your data is precious. Documents, contacts, sensitive materials, proprietary information — it's the currency — the lifeblood of your organization. You need the highest levels of security to protect it and preserve it. That's why you should ask tough questions about data centers when choosing a hosted email provider. Birchwood has a Tier 4 data center — the highest security rating — with our Network Operations Center and Birchwood professional personnel on site.

STORAGE IS STORAGE — WHAT'S THE BIG DEAL

You can rest easy when you trust Birchwood with your data. That's because we've designed and built one of the most comprehensive, redundant, safe and secure data storage systems available today. Other service providers often use less expensive, less effective, architecture and methodologies for storage. But these cost-saving measures may mean financial ruin to the end users in the event of a security breach, lost or compromised data.

Let's look at some of the key differentiators in the Birchwood storage architecture; the way we've designed, built, and maintained our storage yields these real-world advantages:

Better performance
Better uptime
No interruptions
Greater data integrity
Greater reliability
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SPAM AND VIRUS PROTECTION — I'M AUTOMATICALLY PROTECTED, RIGHT?

The Internet has been called "The Wild West" for good reason. Millions of hackers, spammers, and phishers are constantly refining their attacks — your service provider needs to demonstrate that same dedication to protection. Birchwood is constantly updating and refining our software, reviewing and improving our architecture and gateway servers, and performing daily maintenance and upgrades at all levels.

EMAIL IS JUST A COMMODITY

Email is there when you turn on your computer — it's just part of the system right? Wrong! It's a complex system with thousands of variables, parts, switches, routers, data centers, people and technologies. And while it's true that you can get email service from many vendors — there are very real differences in the level of service that you receive. And, (un)like the saying goes — what you don't know can hurt you!

Email has grown quickly into the most important business tool in use today. Files, data, documents, contacts, calendars and more are also being actively stored and accessed within email. While convenience and ease of use have increased, so too have security and connectivity issues. And there is increasing demand for more connectivity to a myriad of new mobile protocols, plus added capacity, speed, uptime, security, and secure storage. To meet the increasing messaging demands of your business, your email provider needs to be completely dedicated to anticipating — and exceeding — expectations. Birchwood is the leader of email hosting providers due to our functionality, innovation, security, and customer-centric approach. Shop around…or connect with the best: Birchwood. Fill out the form below to get more details.

BIGGER IS BETTER

There's a recent trend with email providers to supply larger mailboxes. A large mailbox decreases the performance of the system,
and not only slows down input and output, but can also pose a greater threat to data security.

At Birchwood we provide mailboxes that are sized appropriately as well as other storage management tools to handle most business needs without posing a drain to back-end resources that compromise the system. This actually helps to keep the integrity of our data files by providing easier nightly backups for our files. In the event of a failure, we'd be able to provide a restoration quickly and seamlessly.