According to recent studies, more and more companies are choosing to outsource their interoffice email and communication systems. This is due to a number of factors, but the cost and headaches involved with setting up and maintaining internal servers can simple be too much for today's companies. This is particularly true in the case of small and medium businesses. Exchange hosting offers a great alternative to an in-house setup, and can give you quite a few benefits. What is Exchange hosting and how does it work?

What Is Exchange Hosting?

The simplest explanation of Exchange hosting is that it is simply a means of connecting interoffice computers to each other, without having to have an internal server or network. Through an Exchange setup, individual computer connect to off-site servers, where email, interoffice communications and documents are stored. This frees up capital within the business for other uses, and also ensures that the IT department (if present), only has to deal with basic computer issues.

What Should You Look For?

If you are interested in seeing the benefits offered by Exchange hosting in your company, you will certainly need to know what to look for. Obviously, you're going to have to use a web host for this - though not just any host will work. The first step is to find a company that specializes in Exchange hosting, often called email-only hosting. Make sure that you take your time and do a thorough comparison, as not all companies that offer these types of services use Exchange (which is a Microsoft product). Therefore, it can be problematic if you make the wrong choice.

Ensuring You Make the Right Choice

How do you ensure that you make the right choice? Obviously, comparing several different companies side by side is the best way to do that. However, you should know what to look for. Like any web hosting solution, you need to check the company's uptime. As they will be handling all of your communications and document access, this is vital - when the host goes down, you will not be able to access any of that information.

You also need to compare rates and disk space and the number of email addresses offered. Ideally, you will choose an Exchange hosting service that offers unlimited email addresses, unlimited disk space and unlimited bandwidth, but you must do your research first.