Unified Communications Solutions

Microsoft releases supported version of Lync Server 2010 for Hosting

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Microsoft just released the Multitenant version of Lync Server 2010. While the Enterprise version of Lync Server 2010 was released in Dec 2010, that version is not supported by Microsoft for hosting in a multi-tenant public cloud. This version is supported by Microsoft, and Chinook Communications will be one of the very first service providers (if not the first) to deploy in production.

Our rollout is underway now and we are begining the marketing push and PR. Look for an update towards the end of January.

Along with the release of Exchange 2010 SP2 a few weeks ago we now have a combined platform from Microsoft that allows Chinook Communications to offer Cloud based Unfied Communications with the full capabilities of Exchange and Lync. This means full telephony and the opportunity to displace traditional on-prem PBX gear.

Chinook Communications was one of six pilot service providers worldwide that did early testing and put real customer on the platform to pilot. The Pilot has been very successful and confirms our belief that once a typical customer get's familiar with the platform, they are more than willing to move forward with the service.

The Chinook Communications service offering includes the following key features:

• Enterprise Voice with PSTN termination
• Lync based Audio Conferencing
• Exchange 2010 Unified Messaging for Voice Mail
• Exchange 2010 Auto Attendant

and all of the other capabilities of Exchange and Lync resulting a truly innovative and capable communications and collaboration platform.

Value of Business Hosting for SMB's: How do you calculate that?

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At Chinook Communications I have seen numerous times while talking to businesses the analysis around trying to compare cloud based services to on premise based on a price or cost standpoint. In my viewpoint, the comparison must be done not on a dollar amount in a spreadsheet, but on the value of the service to the business.

Whether it is on premise or hosted or in a cloud is more a business model discussion, though with lots of considerations such as security, service levels, and recoverability.

But how do you start to get a handle on the value of the service? I have attempted here to at least outline some of the items you might consider:

• Focus IT Staff on Mission Critical Line of Business Apps
• I have heard repeatedly from customers that their IT staff is overworked and understaffed and they wish they could focus on more mission critical line of business apps instead of things like managing Exchange.
• By outsourcing commodity technology like messaging and collaboration, unified communications, and business applications like CRM, you free up your IT staff, and further, future proof yourself from having to maintain current technology and keep your staff up to speed

• Get access to technology without roadblocks
• It is increasingly common to have a discussion with potential customers about them wanting to deploy a new technology like Unified Communications utilizing Microsoft Lync Server 2010 and Exchange Server 2010 Unified Messaging, but their IT staff is blocked by too many other projects and don't have the requisite expertise to deploy it quickly and start getting value. In some cases, this is from folks that have already bought the software and cannot leverage the investment.

• Physical Security
• This one is easy, how many small businesses have their Exchange or SharePoint server sitting under a desk, or in a non secure storage closet? Physically securing your server and storage is every bit as important as the standard security from user ids and passwords.

• Datacenter Features
• "The Cage"
• Having a highly efficient and secure "cage" in a data center is the first step in physical security and reliability
• Highly Available and Redundant Power and Network
• UPS and diesel generator backup power with multiple redundant communication links - how many small businesses have that?
• Security
• Multiple levels of physical access security and video surveillance, common in a Data Center, not so much in a typical office building

Yeah, but I can get all of that by doing co-location myself can't I?...for 100 people?
Sure you could, and for around $2-3,000 per month you get your cage, power, and broadband, but....You would underutilize the cage by an incredible margin - how many servers would you put in the cage? With blade technology you can place many servers in one cage but a typical small business probably only has a dozen servers at most.

For all of that expense for your servers, you are still woefully under utilizing them - to have minimally redundant Exchange platform, even with virtualization, you will need a few physical servers - but probably no Storage Are Network and related benefits - and for how many users? Maybe a 100 or 200? You will have a platform that could easily run 2000 users or more - hey, that's not green!

End User and Customer Experience

The Cloud offers a better user experience, including:

• Easier, Web Based Administration and it can be delegated (IT staff establishes the rules, policies, and plans - then it's automated), by using more effective tools with tasks completed in a more timely manner
• Anywhere access without having to become an expert on firewalls and security

In this article the Whir does a nice job of analyzing the benefits for SMB's utilizing hosted services:
Link to WHIR - http://www.thewhir.com/web-hosting-news/020410_SMB_Using_Hosted_Services_Have_Better_Financial_Performance_Microsoft_Study

Finally, this is all summed up by saying it is difficult to quantify costs of on premise vs. hosted, and there are numerous tangents of value that have to be evaluated and how the outcomes of one choice impact the bottom line for the business.

Chinook Communications Launches Online Training

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As we prepare to launch our Hosted Lync offering we feel it is more important than ever to provide training for our customers so they know what to expect with our Hosted Lync Offering.

We  have created our own online training environment for this content and our first module covers and overview of Chinook Communications and our Hosted Lync offering.

We will follow up this first training module with a number of others.

If you have any requests, let us know!

Chinook Communications part of Hosted Lync Pilot

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Chinook Communications has been invited to be one of the pilot launches of Hosted Lync using a hosting specific version of Lync called the Lync Hosting Pack. We will be deploying starting in mid-July and in production at the beginning of September. We will also be upgrading the platform to Exchange Server 2010 and SharePoint 2010. Our offering will include the full capabilities of Lync Enterprise Voice and Exchange Unified Messaging including Voice Telephony, Audio Conferencing, Voice Mail, and Auto Attendant.

 This is a very exciting opportunity for Chinook Communications customers as this platform will deliver more effective communications, better collaboration, and because it is delivered from the cloud, reduced cost structure and IT efficiency. It simply represents a much better value for your communications spend.

Hosted Microsoft Dynamics CRM In The Cloud

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These days there are many CRM options from which to choose – Salesforce.com, Microsoft Dynamics CRM, SAP, Oracle, are all examples of the big-name brands - in fact business-software.com recently published a feature comparison of forty (40!) CRM packages. Most of them provide similar features, like sales, marketing, customer service and so on, so the first decision point is to look at features that the business needs and winnow down the list of potential candidate systems based on feature/functionality. An additional consideration is the ability to customize. If customization is important that needs to be factored in too – some hosted systems permit only limited customization. A related issue is if there is the need to potentially link to other systems like line of business applications, point-of-sale, or financials. This latter issue is important whether the system is in-house or hosted, as the support of security protocols and authorization mechanisms vary and some implementations may not support business needs.

The next consideration is whether to run the selected solution on-premise, or to buy a hosted cloud solution.  This decision often tends to be driven by the size of the company. Larger companies with existing infrastructure and IT resources may prefer to retain control of their CRM. Smaller firms may not have the capital or expertise for an on-premise solution, so hosted CRM is a better fit.

Let’s look at a hypothetical case of a manufacturing company with 100 employees considering Microsoft Dynamics CRM. Typically only 10-15% of all employees need CRM access, so this company would need 10 licenses as a minimum. The economics for the two options for Microsoft Dynamics CRM are listed below. For the sake of simplicity I have assumed that the company will buy a new single server for the CRM system, and further that its sales team and executives will need access to the system over the Internet.

Initial capital costs for on-premise Dynamics CRM

Source: www.microsoft.com

Operating costs for on-premise Dynamics CRM

Source: Author’s estimates on market rates and support/admin needs.

Dynamics CRM on-premise 5 year total cost of ownership: $154,871

Yes, really! An on-premise system can cost as much to run each year as the original purchase price.

Note that these prices are estimates only and your mileage will vary.

By contrast, hosted Dynamics CRM costs $40/user/month. So the 5 year TCO for 10 users is $24,000, or about 15% of the equivalent on-premise system.

How is such a massive difference possible? Fundamentally, economies of scale. Hosting companies can share hardware and other services amongst hundreds or thousands of customers very efficiently. Microsoft licensing is monthly instead of an up-front lump sum. Patching, updates and backups are automated to reduce cost and risk. Moreover hosting companies replicate their infrastructure to make sure systems stay available even in the event of hardware failure.

Pricing across hosted CRM from different vendors vary widely. Certainly the company that creates a lot of buzz is Salesforce.com. Their pricing is a little difficult to pin down, at least for me. However I do know that Dynamics CRM offers equivalent functionality to the Salesforce Enterprise sales module that costs $125/month. To add basic customer service that is included in Dynamics CRM out of the box costs another $65 for the Salesforce Service Cloud Professional Edition. So to buy Salesforce with equivalent functionality to Dynamics CRM is over four times more expensive per month.

To recap here is how I would recommend choosing a CRM solution:

• Document business needs
• Short list CRM applications with the right feature set
• Determine importance of the ability to customize the system
• Assess the need to link to other external systems
• Review economics of in-house vs. hosted options

For an informative comparison of major CRM systems, please read Lauren Carlson's article at http://www.softwareadvice.com/articles/crm/salesforce-alternatives-5-systems-to-consider-1052011/

For further information on Microsoft Dynamics CRM please visit http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/dynamics/default.aspx .

To contact Chinook Communications please visit http://www.chinookcommunications.com .

Chinook Communications achieves Microsoft Silver Hosting Competency

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Chinook Communications has achieved the Silver Hosting Competency in the Microsoft Partner Network, demonstrating its ability to meet Microsoft customers’ evolving needs in today’s dynamic business environment. To earn a Microsoft Silver Competency, partners must complete a set of tests to prove their level of technology expertise, submit customer references and employ or contract required number of Microsoft Certified Professionals who are skilled on current technology relevant for the competency.

 “By achieving a Silver Competency, partners have proven themselves as specialized technology experts with the skills needed to best serve customers,” said Jon Roskill, corporate vice president, Worldwide Partner Group at Microsoft Corp. “The Silver Competency in the Microsoft Partner Network is designed to help customers identify services and solution providers that have demonstrated proof of their capability to deliver quality outcomes and customer satisfaction.”

The Microsoft Silver Competency defines partners’ success as technology market leaders within a specific technology competency, with each competency having a unique set of requirements and benefits formulated to accurately represent the specific skills and services that partners bring to the industry.  Requirements for the Silver Competency are comparable to the formerly recognized Microsoft Certified Partner criteria. All 29 Microsoft technology competencies differentiate a partner’s specific technology capabilities, helping customers find qualified solution providers with expertise in discrete areas quickly and easily.

The Microsoft Partner Network is designed to equip organizations that deliver products and services through the Microsoft platform with the training, resources and support they need to provide their customers superior experience and outcomes.

Non-Microsoft Client Device Use Increasing for Hosted Exchange

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I am, perhaps unsurprisingly, seeing a definite uptick in customers who choose to use Apple products – iPhone, iPad, Macintosh – as their client device to access our cloud platform of business applications. The level of integration with, and support for, Microsoft applications on the broader Apple platforms has increased significantly, and kudos to both companies for taking the high road in helping our joint customers be successful.

Of particular note on Mac OSX is the native support of the Mac Mail client for Microsoft Exchange, allowing customers to choose between Mac Mail and Entourage according to their business needs. The iPhone ActiveSync mail software has similarly been improved and provides a great user experience for customers using this smartphone for synchronizing their mailbox. Apple Mac users will soon have yet another choice with Outlook 2011 for the Mac released as beta, and shipping in production early in 2011.

All of this is not to say that we have not seen some compatibility issues from time to time, however these are becoming less common as Microsoft and Apple both continue to improve the integration between their offerings.

Here at Chinook Communications we are proud to support a range of client hardware devices. Our hosted Exchange works with multiple platforms – Outlook, Web browsers, Mac, Linux. Hosted SharePoint works well across multiple browsers, regardless of operating system. Hosted Office Communications Server supports both Mac and PC. Hosted Dynamics CRM does still require Internet Explorer, but there are some workarounds for Mac Users – Parallels, Cross-Over from Codeweavers.com, VM Workstation from VMware are all examples – and similar products work on Linux as well.

All in all I consider that interoperability is improving, which is good news for not just our customers but every business user in the world.

Chinook Hosting Becomes Chinook Communications!

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We are pleased to announce that on September 27^th, Chinook Hosting will be rebranded and launched as Chinook Communications™ at the Washington Technology Industry Association’s TechNW event in Seattle.

Chinook will offer Unified Communications solutions directly to small and mid-sized businesses with complete communications packages, including software and integrated Internet telephone service. As well as Internet telephony options at very attractive price points, we will be enhancing our product offerings over the next several months.

Visit us at www.chinookcommunications.com to get more information and view launch specials.  You can also find expert information on Unified Communications solutions at our blog www.chinookcommunications.com/blog. 

SharePoint 2010: Finally, A Hostable Version!

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WSS can be shared in a "multi-tenant" environment, and hosting companies are thus able to provide significant economies of scale and a very attractive price point for small and mid-sized businesses.

However, while WSS is a strong product, its capabilities are significantly less than those of MOSS - in areas like programmability, search, workflows and so on. Meanwhile, MOSS 2007 cannot operate in a shared environment, and customers desiring a cloud-based version of MOSS need to purchase a virtual server environment in which to operate it.

Enter SharePoint 2010, slated for release on May 12. SharePoint 2010 has been architected from the ground up to support a shared platform. This means that hosting companies can now offer a full-featured SharePoint product without the added overhead of dedicated virtual environments. This welcome development enables completely new scenarios:

• Full-featured, affordable SharePoint for small and medium businesses
• The potential to create shared collaborative environments across multiple companies, particularly in industries where project-based work crosses organizational boundaries - film & television, construction, travel & hospitality are all examples
• The ability to integrate processes both internal and external as part of an overall value chain

Major new product releases are always exciting to service providers such as ourselves. SharePoint 2010 promises to be a game-changer for our customers, and we are looking forward to our offering SharePoint after its release to manufacturing!

Save Your Customers Money by Providing Business Hosting

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Small and mid-sized companies routinely outsource on a number of fronts-from payroll processing and accounting to HR and inventory management. But many of these companies have not yet made the leap to cloud communication services-or taken the time to analyze their potential cost effectiveness. And while money certainly isn't the only reason for your customers to outsource their communications, it's a major factor as you help them evaluate savings opportunities and look for innovative ways to help them weather the recession.

Here's how you can impact your customers' bottom line by providing business hosting:

1. Reduce internal staffing commitments: Utilizing business hosting lowers labor costs by (a) freeing up IT experts to focus on mission-critical projects, and (b) reducing the need for personnel redundancy. As full-time staff members begin to shift their attention from routine maintenance and extraneous tasks to value-added undertakings, your customers will realize increasing profits within their own company.

2. Reduced capital expenses: If your customers gasp each time their capital budget comes up for review, business hosting may bring them a welcome breath of fresh air. In addition to saving manpower, outsourced communications reduces cash outlay for infrastructure, equipment maintenance and software/hardware updates. When your customers trust you with their email, voice, IM and social networking, we'll support you by employing the latest Microsoft technologies to deliver cutting-edge hosted communications options to your customers, while helping them avoid costly equipment expenditures.

3. Replacing fixed costs: With Chinook Hosting's communication packages that you can offer, your customers pay only for the support they need. That means they can replace fixed salary and equipment costs with variable costs, which are often lower and easier to manage.

In addition to downsizing staff and equipment, outsourced communications allows your customers to cancel unnecessary software licenses and sell off extra hardware. They'll also reduce miscellaneous costs, like employee travel expenditures.

Outsourcing their unified communications service to your company and Chinook Hosting allows their employees to conference over the Web rather than paying for pricey flights, hotels and rental cars. This small change can amount to significant company savings over time.

Interested in learning more? Contact Chinook Hosting today for a no-obligation consultation. When you partner with Chinook Hosting, you'll not only help your customers save money-but you'll help them benefit from a highly secure, collaborative workspace that connects managers, employees, vendors and clients to the information they need, when they need it. What could be better?

What do you think?

We're interested in hearing from you. What about providing business hosting to your customers sounds most intriguing to you? What questions and comments do you have?