Current Trends – Cloud (Hosted) Messaging Solutions
Email is only one of a growing portfolio
of services in what is routinely referred to as Unified Communication (UC)
infrastructure. From the hardware and infrastructure point of view, this often
means the integration of network systems for telephone (landlines), internet
(data link), video (conferencing, cable etc.) and cellular communication. From
the services point of view, the usual term is Unified Messaging (UM) – which
encompasses email, voice mail, video mail, instant messaging, and SMS messaging.
Other components of UM include social networking sites and tools such as RSS, Facebook,
Twitter, Google Voice, Google Wave[1],
document management, project management and a growing catalog of innovative
solutions. Messaging platforms are evolving and as vendors make these
capabilities available in their free consumer versions, business user
expectations are also being shaped by their experiences on these free
platforms. After Google famously released its Gmail Beta version with unlimited storage starting with 5GB in
2004, email solution providers – both commercial (and private) and free have
had to deal with the new user expectations for email storage. Today, leading
messaging vendors have integrated email, SMS, voice mail, document management,
calendar, scheduling tools and many others into a single unified platforms with
access-anywhere and on any-platform capability.
In short, messaging infrastructure is
growing beyond the capability of many small and medium sized institutions to
manage effectively. However, in the face of the growing complexity,
organizations are best served if they invest the time in understanding
technology trends, define their own communication needs and strategy and
determine the best way to align technology with their own objective.
The trend in messaging infrastructure
today is steadily in favor of some cloud based, outsourced model. Many
organizations, including nearly 30% of higher education institutions; a growing
number of federal, state and local government agencies and more than a million
businesses across the United States and overseas, have embraced some form of
hosted or outsourced email infrastructure.
The key advantage of this model is the
obvious benefits of scale that large providers can offer – including Google’s
famous unlimited email storage (now pegged at 25GB (Gigabits) of storage for
Education and paying enterprise customers), integration with a myriad of
collaboration tools including; Microsoft’s integration of email infrastructure
with blogging tools, personal web-pages, 25GB of online storage, instant
messages, SMS[2] as
well as integrated security solution. These mega-providers (Microsoft claims
over 300 million users of its online email systems including Hotmail, Live@Edu
and MSN, while Google claims over 193 million users of its Gmail solution)
devote hundreds of dedicated, highly skilled professionals to administrating,
innovating on, and managing their messaging platforms. They are able to add new
features and capabilities driven largely by competition and they are also able
to deliver their services to users at very cheap or no prices to the users,
relying on a myriads of business models including advertisement for Hotmail and
Gmail accounts, and expectation of new customers for Google Apps for Education
and Microsoft’s Live@Edu. To an education customer, this translates into a very
low cost for what could be top-class messaging solution.
Weakness of cloud based messaging infrastructure
The key disadvantage of the cloud model
remains the issue of data ownership and the obvious concerns with privacy and
confidentiality (intellectual property in higher education). Many institutions
have been able to sort through the FERPA[3]
concerns, and many have decided to adopt a dual-messaging infrastructure
strategy to minimize the potential impact of the stated risk to intellectual
property.
The providers themselves are responding to
some of these concerns, particularly to those concerns raised by federal
government agencies with FISMA[4]
compliance requirements. Google has built a segregated data-center with all the
equipment located in the United States to provide assurance to Federal agencies
that confidential government data will not end up in the hands of foreign
governments[5]. Leading
vendors including Google and Microsoft continue to tout their ability to meet
rigorous Federal Government requirements including Google’s and Microsoft’s
touted[6]
FISMA certifications.
[1] Google Wave is currently suspended for new users.
[2] SMS – Short Message Services – a text message
system protocol for mobile telephone systems
[3] FERPA – Family Education Right and Privacy Act
[6] The FISMA complaint products are usually purpose
built solutions to meet rigorous Federal Government requirements and does not address
the needs of private businesses for data-confidentiality
1. Email Storage
a. Google – 25GB of storage per mail box for Google Apps
for Education (free for students – employee account with Postini upgrade @
$4/year/employee)
b. Microsoft – 10GB
of storage for Microsoft Live@Edu (free version for students) and 25 GB storage
for Exchange Hosted (at $60/year/ employees)
c. Mirapoint – Will
support up to 1 GB if current storage for all users if current storage is
increased 5 folds plus data-de-duplication technology upgrade. Will support 1
GB if students are migrated off existing system and no additional storage added.
2. Message
Synchronization
a. Google - Include
Microsoft Exchange sync software which works with Outlook 2007 and older for
outlook users. Support full sync without plugin for all other systems including
all leading smartphone platforms.
b. Microsoft – Both Live@Edu
and Exchange Hosted support full sync with Outlook natively. Also support all
leading Mobile platform – relying on Google Implementation of Exchange sync to
support Android Phones.
c. Mirapoint – No
native sync solution. Third-party sync solution available at a cost, but
Mirapoint third party solutions have a history of not being effective.
3. Calendar and
Events
a. Google – Highly rated,
industry leading internet calendar system with additional support for
enterprise features such as group calendars, calendar access control and full
integration with email platform including outlook sync and smartphone
integration.
b. Microsoft – Extensive
enterprise calendar system based on Microsoft Exchange technology with full
integration with outlook and all supported smartphone platforms. It includes
full sync capability across all platforms as well as on all Microsoft product
lines including SharePoint[1].
c. Mirapoint –
Limited calendar sharing capability. Poor support for outlook and smartphones.
4. Contacts or
Directory access and management
a. Google –
Integrated Contact platforms with fine-grained (albeit tedious) domain control
of contact group access. Integrated with all supported platforms including
outlook and smartphones.
b. Microsoft – Hosted
Exchange include comprehensive contact support across the domain on outlook.
c. Mirapoint –
Include localized contact support on webmail interface. No external contact
support on any other platform.
5. Email Security
a. Google – Google
Apps (and Gmail) include highly regarded spam management solution. Also include
virus scanning tool for web-based interface. Supports third party digital
signature and encryption tools via outlook. Includes support for secure
connection using SSL/TLS for all messaging protocols.
b. Microsoft – Both
Exchange Online and Live@Edu includes
forefront messaging security and protection for spam and other malware. Microsoft
exchange and outlook also include the industry most mature support for digital
signature and encryption. Both also have support for secure connection using
SSL/TLS for all messaging protocol.
c. Mirapoint
include mail hurdle anti-virus and anti-spam as additional license cost.
Digital signature and encryption is available through Outlook. Also supports
SSL/TLS connection for all messaging protocols and for webmail access.
6. Compliance
Management (and archiving)
a. Google – Google Postini
is a comprehensive enterprise messaging compliance tool designed specifically
to address the growing complexity of corporate messaging compliance
requirements including encryption, archiving, data loss prevention and others.
b. Microsoft - Microsoft
Live@Edu is a branded version of Microsoft consumer email, Hotmail and does not
include any compliance solution. Microsoft Exchange Online is an enterprise
grade tool and supports third-party archiving and DLP services at additional
costs.
c. Mirapoint –
Offers no direct compliance Management solution. Several generic vendor exists,
including cloud based tools such as Postini b Google.
7. Unified
Communication
a. Google – Google’s suite
of collaboration tool is the industry’s most robust cloud based platform for
unified communication today. While it does not currently support enterprise PBX[2],
Google Apps include a telephone (single phone number feature) services, a
triple play[3]
chat feature (video, voice and SMS), a text messaging feature. All these
features at no additional cost. It can also be used in collaboration with
Microsoft outlook to provide additional services or integrated with other
enterprise tools.
b. Microsoft –
Microsoft Exchange Online is the gold standard for Unified Communication,
however, Microsoft Hosted exchange does not provide the same set of
capabilities as Google Apps for the same level of integration and at a similar
price point. Exchange hosted is primarily an email infrastructure for 20% more
than the Google App. SMS capability is available with the integration of
Microsoft Communication Server (now Lync Server) at an additional cost.
Microsoft hosted application platform is an evolving strategy, while Google’s
hosted application platform is more mature and refined.
c. Mirapoint – Has
no clear unified communication strategy.
8. Enterprise
Integration is the ability to tightly use enterprise systems such as Banner
(ERP), Active Directory (Access
Control), Learning Management System (Blackboard), File Management Systems etc
with a messaging application.
a. Google – Google Apps
include a growing array of tools to support enterprise integration, including
tools for integrating with enterprise identity and access control systems such
as active directory. The Google data APIs are the industry most mature.
b. Microsoft –
Microsoft Exchange online supports integration with Active Directory
c. Mirapoint –
Supports integration with enterprise infrastructure.
9. User Interface
a. Google – Google Apps
Has a comprehensive support for most common end user clients including all
leading web browsers, all leading desktop clients (including complete support
for Microsoft Outlook), all major smartphone and PDA platforms.
b. Microsoft - Microsoft
Exchange Online includes Microsoft’s signature outlook web-access and a
comprehensive support for most common end user clients including Microsoft
Outlook and all major smartphone and PDA platforms. Third party support for Microsoft
exchange remains the industry gold standard for enterprise ready solutions.
c. Mirapoint – Mipoint supports all third-party email clients, but
sports a dated web interface and has a clumsy tool for managing messages on
multiple devices.
10. Desktop Integration
includes support for seamless use of tools from personal computers and ability
to send emails within productivity software such as Microsoft word.
a. Google – Google
enjoys a growing support for desktop integration with an increasing array of
desktop specific tools.
b. Microsoft – Microsoft
remains the gold standard for desktop integration, particularly for Windows
based desktop operating systems
11. Mobile
Integration
a. Google – Excellent
support for mobile platforms include outlook and exchange sync.
b. Microsoft – Excellent
support for most mobile platforms using native Microsoft tools.
c. Mirapoint –
Limited support for Mobile platforms with no native sync tool.
12. Social
Networking Integration
a. Google – Google enjoys
increasing support for social networking platforms including Google friends
connect and all Google platform tools such as Blogger, Picasa, and Buzz. Google
also provides an enterprise control over who within the enterprise can use
standard Google social networking tools. Google Apps accounts are also Open Id[4]
ready.
b. Microsoft –
Microsoft enjoys increasing support for social networking platform with a deep
integration with Facebook. Microsoft Outlook 2010 (can also be used with Google
Apps) support a deeper integration of the email client with Social networking
tools.
c. Mirapoint – No
support for social networking tools.
13. Migration and
Upgrade Costs
a. Google –
Migrating all users to a Google Apps will require at least 100 hours of
personnel time. No additional cost will be necessary other than the cost of
additional security features (Postini) for selected employees. The annual cost
of Postini for 2500 employees will be $10,000. This cost assumes employee
accounts are not provisioned separately as Google Apps for Enterprise (a
$50/employee annual cost)
b. Microsoft –
Migrating all students to Microsoft Live@Edu will require at least 100 hours of
personnel time. Migrating employees to Microsoft Exchange online will require
at least 200 hours of personnel time. The cost of Microsoft Exchange Online for
2500 employees will cost $75,000 annually, assuming a 50% educational discount.
c. Mirapoint - While Google
Apps includes 25GB of storage per user (students, employees), and Microsoft
offers 5GB for Live @ Edu users, and 25GB for Exchange online users, increasing
Mirapoint to a comparable storage for all users will require at least a ten
times storage increase from 1 terabits to 10 terabits at an astronomical cost.
A more cost effective solution might include offering a lower storage of up to
1 GB per (requiring a smaller upgrade of 5 times the existing storage) or
moving students off the system and offering higher storage to faculty and staff
only. The last option will also free up costs of licensing which in the future
can be applied towards storage upgrades.
14. Total Cost of
Ownership
a. Google Apps – A 5 year projection of Google Apps costs including
personnel support and annual fees is estimated at $91,500 (assumes $10,00
annual fees for 2500 employees; $4000 in personnel time for implementation, and
$7500 in annual personnel time at $30/hour rate) – Note that personnel time is
will not be out of pocket costs.
b. Microsoft
Exchange Online - A 5 year total cost is $462,000 with similar considerations
as for Google Apps. The number includes 300 personnel hour to implement, 500
annual personnel hours (there are two systems involved) and a higher per user
cost for employees.
c. Mirapoint – The
system is paid for as-is for the next two years and will cost another $362,500
over the next 5 years if additional upgrades are included to address storage
comparability with Windows Live @ Edu (but still less than 25GB).
15. Additional
Features
a. Google Apps now supports all Google tools including
website builder for teams, blogs, group and listserv tools for groups,
calendar, document sharing and management, photo sharing, multi-platform
support and many more.
b. Microsoft Live @ Edu includes the entire array of
Microsoft consumer products such as 5GB storage for documents, online document
management, instant messenger, Facebook integration, calendar tools and many
more. Microsoft Exchange Online support enterprise chat, Microsoft Live
Meeting, Microsoft SharePoint online (includes blog tools, integrated document
management – works better with Microsoft Office), Microsoft Office Live, a
calendar tool and many more.
c. Mirapoint
includes support for a webmail interface and calendar tool.
16. Future Features
a. Google is always
adding new features and capabilities to its Gmail platform.
b. Microsoft
continues to add additional online tools and capabilities to work with its
messaging infrastructure.
c. Mirapoint has
produced limited innovation over the years.
Other Players
There
are several other notable players in the enterprise email business,
particularly in the cloud email scene. The key players include IBM, Cisco and
more recently Vmware. Vmware is a division of EMC, and it recently acquired
Zimbra, Yahoo’s key enterprise email platform. Zimbra, it is worth noting has
changed hands before. Vmware’s strategy is to sell Zimbra as an enterprise
internal cloud solution, betting on the notion that email and messaging
infrastructure will continue to be hosted on the premise by some organizations.
IBM
Lotus online is IBM’s cloud strategy to keep its Lotus Note suites of tools in
the play as the next generation of enterprise collaboration tools move to the
software as a service (or cloud) space. It is priced comparably with Microsoft
Exchange Online, has no free student version and is as quaint as the desktop
version of Lotus Note.
Cisco recently acquired a slew of software
vendors and is packaging several of their wares as part of its strategy to get
into commodity software services. The Cisco Enterprise email solution is
centered around, and named after its original small-business purchase, WebEx.
While the WebEx messaging solution has a price comparable to Microsoft’s
Exchange online, it remains mostly a crude messaging platfo
[1] SharePoint is
Microsoft’s productivity collaboration platform management system
[2]
PBX – Private Branch Office refers to the enterprise on premise telephone
infrastructure
[3]
Triple Play in telecommunication usually refers to services that encompass
voice, data and video services or capabilities.
[4]
Open Id is a ubiquitous federated access control system that enable users log
into different websites with accounts from one single site.
The original document was developed by me (HNT Solutions) for a client. every effort has been made to remove client's identity from the document.
ReplyDeleteDocument completed in Fall of 2010
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