Exchange 2000 Targeted at ASPs

Unlike its predecessors, Exchange 2000 is finally scalable and reliable enough to meet the needs of application service providers (ASPs) who want to host a million or more mailboxes. Gartner, IDC, and Forrester all project huge growth in the ASP market, estimated at roughly US$25 billion by 2003. The biggest segment of that market will be in hosted messaging and collaboration services, and Microsoft wants Exchange to be the dominant platform for those services. However, ASPs have complex requirements, greatly exceeding that of the largest corporate e-mail installations. They will be held to stringent service-level agreements, yet must be able to tailor their offerings to diverse customer requirements while containing costs enough to make a profit.

Readers considering having an ASP take care of their messaging and collaboration needs with Exchange 2000 need to be aware of the benefits, issues, and caveats that accompany this approach. This article explores this topic from both the ASP and customer perspectives.