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December 2010

ExchangeDefender

Last week we announced our messaging portfolio for 2011. If you missed it, the recording along with the webinar and podcast is now available.

Did you miss the webinar? Here is the recording:

Webinar Recording (wmv movie 45 Minutes)
Webinar Slide Deck (pdf)
Webinar Podcast (mp3 higher quality audio)

The biggest news of the day was ExchangeDefender Managed Messaging, combining all the services necessary to go to the cloud in one affordable package. The second biggest announcement was regarding CloudBlock. Finally, we wanted to plug a hole in our product portfolio that was dictated by the marketplace.

Why?

ExchangeDefender was designed as an all-inclusive solution: protecting you from SPAM, providing business continuity, archiving mail for easy access via LiveArchive, delivering web file sharing functionality as well as web filtering. We felt that we had to protect the client entirely because if we left a hole in the security portfolio the client could be easily exploited.

Our competition saw all of these “necessities” as ways to earn a quick profit. By offering bare bones product and getting people that shopped on price they could easily mark up add-ons as the clients realized they needed them.

It’s important to note that not all companies are made the same and not all IT departments design their networks in the same way. Some have appliances for web filtering, some rely on third party services for web file sharing, others have appliances for archiving purposes. How the network is designed is largely up to the IT department and the specific company needs where some ExchangeDefender features may feel superfluous. This is something that many of our service providers told us was their biggest advantage by going into a client and a way that ExchangeDefender alone lands managed services contracts:

“We go down the feature list in ExchangeDefender and we ask them if they have that feature in their current solution. Yes or no? How much are they paying for that? We then present our managed services plan and just go through their current costs and repeat: We can knock that off your bill so you won’t have that fee to pay again. As we go through their expenses we make our managed services product much more appealing and it always leads to sales.”

We have seen a great number of partners that don’t want an all-in solution and instead want a barebones product. We feel that CloudBlock will help those looking at the price as the only objective. We also feel that ExchangeDefender Essentials will fit the middle ground, where you want your own product with your own brand and margins but a huge discount for only selling the essentials.

What?

ExchangeDefender Essentials is ExchangeDefender without all the enterprise stuff: No LiveArchive, no Web Filtering, no Web File Sharing, no Encryption, no SplitMX, no FailPOP and no compliance archiving.

ExchangeDefender Essentials provides enterprise-class SPAM and virus filtering, mail queueing when your mail server goes down, outbound SMTP relay and all the core technology within ExchangeDefender to keep your network secure. It can be centrally managed, connected to your PSA and is fully supported by us.

Most importantly, ExchangeDefender Essentials is 50% cheaper than ExchangeDefender. It comes with no minimum, no contract requirements and is available on all new account.

Sincerely,
Vlad Mazek, MCSE
CEO, Own Web Now Corp

General

Yesterday we held a webcast to announce our messaging portfolio for 2011. If you missed it, the recording along with the webinar and podcast is now available.

Did you miss the webinar? Here is the recording:

Webinar Recording (wmv movie 45 Minutes)
Webinar Slide Deck (pdf)
Webinar Podcast (mp3 higher quality audio)

The biggest news of the day was ExchangeDefender Managed Messaging, combining all the services necessary to go to the cloud in one affordable package. The second biggest announcement was regarding CloudBlock.

Why?

In the past few years we have seen Microsoft and Google commoditize the entire enterprise email solution space. These moves were not welcomed by the reseller channel partners, even as both companies stepped up their efforts to become more partner friendly their primary goal was ownership of the client.

Indeed, many partners have lost clients to BPOS and Google Apps.

Sometimes the price is the only thing that matters. Given the economy, and the relative lack of appreciation for the more complex messaging needs, the low-cost commodity email has become quite popular.

What is CloudBlock?

CloudBlock, Inc is a third-party solution powered by the technology licensed from Own Web Now, ExchangeDefender and Exchange 2010 hosting management in particular.

It’s primary goal is to be simple to use. It’s secondary goal is to be cost effective.

There are two solutions in the stack: Mail (Exchange 2010 hosted in the cloud) and Security (SMTP security in the cloud, filtering SPAM and viruses as well as providing for business continuity).

Simplicity: Anyone can sign up at any time.

Cost Effectiveness: $2.99 for Exchange 2010 Mbox (5GB) and $0.35 for SMTP security.

What isn’t CloudBlock?

CloudBlock is not a channel-centric solution, it does not come with the flexible branding, centralized multi-client management or worldwide presence. But it’s simple to sign up and it’s cheap.

CloudBlock is not backed by a professional services business, support is limited to covering the basics.

The Strategy

CloudBlock was designed to be simple and cost effective. As such, it will not meet the needs of many channel resellers, MSPs or VARs. However, it provides for a level of differentiation. There is a huge difference between CloudBlock and an ExchangeDefender powered Exchange solution. There are tons of benefits when it comes to working with a local IT Solution Provider.

Unfortunately, sometimes the only thing that matters is the bottom line price. If the client is not willing to consider anything but the price, now you have a differentiation strategy. If you cannot clearly explain the difference between your various offerings, you cannot help your client choose the correct one for them.

When IT Solution Provider is pinned against Microsoft and Google, and the client only cares about the price, it’s a loss-loss situation. With CloudBlock, there is at least a hope of keeping them in your solution portfolio so you can fit your other solutions in their business.

You now have a better alternative to BPOS and Google Apps – it’s simpler and cheaper – and we’re confident we’ll help you win.

Sincerely,
Vlad Mazek, MCSE
CEO, Own Web Now Corp

To be continued with ExchangeDefender Essentials. See previous entry about ExchangeDefender Managed Messaging.

General

Earlier today we held a webcast to announce our messaging portfolio for 2011. This solution stack is directly driven by partner feedback and is designed for service providers. Here is an overview, answers to some common questions and some ideas on how to position this.

Did you miss the webinar? Here is the recording:

Webinar Recording (wmv movie 45 Minutes)
Webinar Slide Deck (pdf)
Webinar Podcast (mp3 higher quality audio)

Why?

Before we get to the actual announcement, I want to personally share the feedback that we have received from so many of you that prompted us to consider a change in our business.

  • Many MSPs and VARs found the cloud (serverless) environment “foreign” to their business plans and could not imagine their solution stack existing without the server anchor.
  • Many MSPs and VARs complained that they were confronted by retail offerings that were significantly cheaper than the realistic costs of going to the cloud. Licensing and monthly fees are dwarfed by the migration costs that large cloud mail solutions do not talk about.
  • Nearly all the MSPs and VARs could not fit the cloud in their margin models. Frequent question was “How do we turn hardware margin dollars into cloud margin cents and stay alive?” Sadly, the answer is: You don’t, without overhauling your salary structure and talent.
  • Finally, the client still needed to be managed regardless where the email was. Unfortunately, this too was not a major point of consideration when companies decided to move to the cloud. Cost was.

Unfortunately, MSPs and VARs lost way too much business. I cannot count the number of times that I’ve heard partners talk about losing their clients to Microsoft, or only reaching out to me when they lost their deals to someone in the cloud.

We had to do something. I will agree that our solution is not perfect and does leave a ton of room for improvement, but we needed to act now. Starting with January 1st, we’ll be offering the following solution.

What is included in ExchangeDefender Managed Messaging?

Quite a bit. Actually, everything we do is built in: from security (ExchangeDefender) to email hosting (Exchange 2010 Mailbox, SharePoint 2010 web site) as well as migration, billing and support all under our partners brand.

  • ExchangeDefender
    • Email Filtering (Antivirus, Antispam, Corp Disclaimers & Policies, Reporting, PSA Integrations)
    • LiveArchive (Exchange 2010-powered business continuity solution with 1 year rolling archive)
    • Encryption
    • Web File Sharing
    • Web Filtering
  • Exchange 2010 Mailbox with 10GB Storage
  • SharePoint 2010 Portal
  • Billing & Collections
  • Technical Support
  • Migration
    • DNS modifications
    • Shockey Monkey Remote
    • Profile (email) move

It sounds like a lot but it’s the bare essentials. In the cloud, you cannot abandon your clients – they only pay when everything works. So we wanted to make sure that our offering worked from the day it was configured and continues to work through all the surprises with the Exchange, Windows and other fun stuff in between.

Does this mean Competition?

Not at all.

First of all, we are not competing for this business with our partners, it is only offered as an alternative to our award winning platform that no changes are being made to. So if you’re already happy with what you have, Exchange pricing for you will not change neither will the cost of the service.

Second, we will not market this directly. The partner (MSP/VAR) still owns the client. We will not take the client and reassign them to a partner we like more. We will not allow one partner to take over the service from another partner if the client wants to switch IT service providers.

Finally, we will remain a partner-centric organization. There are no plans or agenda to go direct, partners are still a core part of our market strategy, something we have been building for the past 13 years. This is not a prelude to a bigger, more direct offering.

What does it mean?

It means that we’ve idiot-proofed the cloud.

It means you now have 0 excuse not to embrace the cloud, at least for messaging.

It means that you don’t have to do any technical labor to offer Exchange 2010 or SharePoint 2010, we’ll do all the hard work for you.

It means that you don’t have to establish a full billing and collections process, we’ll do that for you as well.

Most importantly, it means you don’t have to do the hard work – from configuration to migration to ongoing management. We will manage the solution end to end.

As far as I’m aware, this is the first time a large service provider and software developer has taken full control of the entire 360 degree service delivery and done so under partners own branding. This is key and a critical differentiator: We are not competing with the partners that made us successful, we’re providing another way to build a business.

Long term, strategic view is even more positive: This helps MSPs and VARs that are uncertain about the cloud a way to start profiting from it immediately. Because it is still your client, you can take over all the responsibilities at the end of the contract and realize even higher profits when you can prove that the cloud can indeed generate significant margins.

Most of the skepticism around the cloud is due to the hype. The rest of it is out of the fear and uncertainty about how to actually go to market and succeed.

I’m proud to say that we are taking a big step with our partners in alleviating a lot of those concerns and helping as many as we can as quickly as we can – we’ll help you win.

Sincerely,
Vlad Mazek, MCSE
CEO, Own Web Now Corp

To be continued with ExchangeDefender Essentials and CloudBlock.