Microsoft Introduces Solution for Service Providers to Deliver Messaging And Collaboration Services to Consumers, Professionals and Small Businesses

REDMOND, Wash., Feb. 5, 2003 — Microsoft Corp. today announced the public availability of the Solution for High Volume Exchange, a comprehensively tested solution optimized to enable service providers to deliver to consumers, professionals and small businesses superior and profitable Internet messaging services that complement their current offerings. Utilizing key Microsoft® technologies, the Solution for High Volume Exchange provides the first integrated technical platform that enables service providers to offer basic e-mail services — from POP3, IMAP and Web mail to integrated messaging and collaboration tools such as calendaring and scheduling — using the Outlook®
Web Access client. Reducing operational costs while enabling the delivery of a richer suite of services to a broader range of customers, the solution drives new and sustainable revenues for broadband Internet access service providers in an intensely competitive marketplace.

Built on the leading collaboration platform, Microsoft Exchange 2000 Server, the Solution for High Volume Exchange provides efficiency and revenue-generation opportunities to service providers. On a single platform, service providers can offer a variety of compelling services such as e-mail, calendaring, contacts, storage and hosting of vanity domain names (second-level domains) for a broader array of customer segments. With the Solution for High Volume Exchange, service providers can drive new revenues and improve customer retention by combining expanded and competitively priced services with their current offerings such as ADSL, broadband access and Web hosting to consumers, professionals and small businesses.

Apptix, a leader in delivering private-label hosted solutions to network service providers worldwide, estimates that by utilizing the Solution for High Volume Exchange its customers can save 75 percent or more in upfront capital expenditures to deploy and deliver expanded Internet messaging services to their customers.
“The flexibility of the solution enables our customers to add on services as needed, presenting upsell opportunities as consumers, professionals and small businesses demand greater features and functionality,”
said Alex Hawkinson, CEO of Apptix.

In addition to providing a single collaboration platform for premier upsell opportunities, the Solution for High Volume Exchange delivers the tools and technologies that service providers need to reduce operational costs and more effectively manage their business and service their customers. Integrating Microsoft Operations Manager (MOM) and the Microsoft Provisioning System (MPS), the solution enables service providers to reach new levels of automation and customer self-service, reduce provisioning errors, and improve service reliability, while improving customer satisfaction, increasing customer loyalty and decreasing
“churn.”
MOM and MPS also collect and measure critical service data, track performance against service levels, and report on subscriber statistics to help service providers efficiently manage services usage, delivery, billing and provisioning.

“Our service provider customers need and want a platform that reduces operational costs and has the capacity to scale their business and drive new revenues,”
said Ron Eller, vice president, Solutions, HP Industry Standard Servers.
“Partnering closely with Microsoft in a rigorous testing environment, weve scaled the solution to ensure that service providers can deliver the best services to their customers at the lowest possible cost. Utilizing the power of our HP ProLiant Servers, we were able to scale more than 3 million mailboxes in a single domain based on the Solution for High Volume Exchange.”

The solution, a highly scalable, commercial-grade collection of technologies, tools and support combined with a documented reference architecture, enables service providers to achieve optimal performance when offering Internet messaging. Because of its integrated XML-based infrastructure, the solution also lays a foundation for future value-added services and revenues.

“As we are committed to providing the best technologies and support to our service provider partners and enabling access to affordable and exciting services for end users, we are proud to announce the availability of the Solution for High Volume Exchange,”
said Pascal Martin, general manager of platform and application hosting at Microsoft.
“With this solution, service providers can offer consumers, professionals and small businesses advanced messaging and collaboration capabilities using Exchange and Outlook Web Access, with exceptional efficiency and profitability.”

Implementations configured to best meet individual service provider needs and current technology investments are available with support and services from trained systems integrator HP or Microsoft Consulting Services. More information on the Solution for High Volume Exchange can be found at http://www.microsoft.com/serviceproviders/hostedexchange/default.asp .

About Microsoft

Founded in 1975, Microsoft (Nasdaq
“MSFT”
) is the worldwide leader in software, services and Internet technologies for personal and business computing. The company offers a wide range of products and services designed to empower people through great software — any time, any place and on any device.

Microsoft and Outlook are either registered trademarks or trademarks of Microsoft Corp. in the United States and/or other countries.

The names of actual companies and products mentioned herein may be the trademarks of their respective owners.

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