About Exchange Hosting Services

Exchange hosting services are companies that rent out Microsoft Exchange mailboxes to individual users and small companies. The hosting company manages a group of Microsoft Exchange Servers that are accessible through the Internet. They also handle backing up the data, recovering from disasters and the like.

All users need to do is connect to their mailboxes through Outlook from anywhere they have an Internet connection. Users can also typically use Outlook Web Access (OWA) to work with their Outlook data from any web browser.

When connected to an Exchange server Microsoft Outlook gains many benefits. The benefits for small businesses are clear:

• No need to own your own Exchange servers or hire the staff to maintain them



• Shared calendars and public folders are available



• Outlook data is accessible from any computer with an Internet connection


• When your hosting company supports Outlook 2007, you may get a free Outlook upgrade

• No need to own your own Exchange servers or hire the staff to maintain them



• Outlook data is accessible from any computer with an Internet connection



• The hosting company can collect mail from other accounts and deliver it to you through Outlook


• When your hosting company supports Outlook 2007, you may get a free Outlook upgrade

For example, I have my main Yahoo! mail account coming into an Exchange mailbox. The hosting service checks my Yahoo! account regularly, and copies all messages from that account into the Inbox of my Exchange mailbox, where I can work with them normally.

When I send or receive messages using the Yahoo! account, the Exchange server is between me and the Yahoo! mail server. To the rest of the world there's no way to know that the Exchange Server is involved with this.

For a mobile Outlook user, a hosted Exchange mailbox you can reach from any computer is a real plus. Your data stays in sync across all your computers and gizmos automatically.

One Exchange mailbox hosting services that I can recommend is:

• 4SmartPhone

Note: In times to come, I'll be extending this section of the site with more information and reviews of Exchange hosting services, as well as procedures, tips, and tricks for getting the most benefit from them. Please subscribe to the LWO Blog to get the latest news about new information as it is added. Once you have selected an Exchange hosting service, you will need to configure Outlook to work with it.

• Return to the top of this Exchange Hosting page.


• Go to the Get Mobile page.


• Go to the Living With Outlook home page.