Should My Law Firm Use Office 365 EMail? | Rekall Technologies

Usually when we talk about corporate email, we talk about Exchange or Google Apps for Business. Recently we?re talking more about cloud solutions like Google or a Hosted Exchange solution but nowadays a new-comer has started gaining ground and it?s another solution through Microsoft, Office 365. Office 365 is a form of hosted exchange made to go head to head with Google Apps for Business. Plans start at $4/user/month and go all the way up to $20. Hosted exchange by itself can?t contend with Google Apps due it the added features that Google has like cloud storage and online document production.

Office 365 gives you an email solution with 25GB mailbox plus spam filter. In some plans, a place to store firm documents as well as online versions of Microsoft Office such as Word, Excel &?PowerPoint. You also get a a communication option calls Lync, it?s like an inter office chat program, just like Google?s Google Talk. You get all of this plus support for a few dollars a month. The idea is that they want you to use the web-based outlook and the web based Office so you see the savings by not purchasing Office licenses for your PC which are around $200. Below is a screenshot of Office 365?s Word, notice how it?s within the Internet Explorer browser showing you that it is in fact a cloud based Word solution. Apparently not all the functionality was?transferred to Word?s cloud counterpart.

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Most people will never use the added functionality of Office 365. Most people will focus on the secure email portion and forget about the rest which is what I am seeing in law firms. When it comes to email, the issue I have is the sub-par spam filter provided by?Microsoft. They may be a leader in the industry but when it compares to many other spam filter programs that we use, it falls short according to reviews. The biggest problem that I have with Office 365 is that if you sign up, you will most likely sign up through Microsoft and not through one of their 25 authorized?re-sellers. If you sign up with Microsoft, you get Microsoft support which is India based and pretty much has a bad reputation for the past 10 years. Problems take a long time to fix because your calling support factories, no personal touch here. Every time they forward you to a new person you?ll have to explain the problem over again and trust me, they are as confused as you are. If you were to sign up through an authorized reseller such as Appriver for instance, they provide the support themselves, U.S. based support. For this you will pay a?premium. Office 365 packages through Appriver are a few dollars more per user per month, but that pays off in the great support you?ll get.

I remember when I was looking at 365, I called Appriver and spoke to a sales guy to get the scoop. He basically said that if you don?t plan on using the extra features that Office 365 has to offer, Hosted Exchange is the way to go. He also mentioned that the spam filter was pretty bad and that often their clients choose to pay extra for Appriver?s spam filter in place of Microsoft Forefront. You get their better spam filter free when you sign up for Hosted Exchange anyway so it comes out being a bit more expensive to choose the 365 option with the better spam filter. He also mentioned issues with the setup and I have heard not so great things from law firms who have adopted this email solution and are having issues integrating within Amicus Cloud and other firm management applications. Keep in mind that a lot of I.T. companies will try and sell you 365 so that they can make more money on each mailbox every month. It?s easier to sell Office 365 at $4/mailbox than Hosted Exchange at $8/mailbox. Make sure you know what your getting and ask questions like who are they buying the mailboxes from, and where does the support come from. If you get rid of your I.T. person, you?ll need to know who to call in case of an issue. It?s important to have the information just in case. It just seems like the safer bet is Hosted Exchange. It may be a bit more at $8/user/month, but it?s been keeping law firms running for a very long time with better spam filtering than Office 365 and better support. But if you like the idea of those other options, give 365 a try, but do not use Microsoft, use an authorized reseller like Appriver. In the end you?ll get less savings, but a much better and faster integration.

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Here?s Microsoft?s pricing info?

http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/office365/compare-plans.aspx?WT.z_O365_ca=Buy_online-software_en-us

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Here?s Appriver?s?

http://www.appriver.com/services/office365/default.aspx#Pricing

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Source: http://www.rekalltech.com/should-my-law-firm-use-office-365-email/

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