ADVICE NEEDED: Who Offers The Best BES / Exchange Hosting?
I wanted to throw this question out there and see if I could get some good quality answers. My question is which BES hosting company would you recommend? I am talking about getting the best bang for your buck so I will describe below what I am looking for. I could really use your help to decide if I should stick with my current host or move to a new one.
My Current Host - ExchangeMyMail - I have been using ExchangeMyMail for BES hosting for over a year now and they do offer a pretty decent service but really skimp on storage space. They also leave their current customers hanging every time they do an upgrade. For example they just upped the storage space for the basic plan from 100MB to 200MB but current customers are not getting any of this upgrade love. What gives?
I have a few problems with their service. One example is two nights ago they had an outage for 12 hours and their customer service was completely unavailable! They also have extremely limited email storage options giving only 100MB for 10$ a month (They have upped this to 200MB for new customers) and charge an extra 10$ for BES hosting. They also have inconsistent customer service where sometimes you will get a very good answer and other times you wont even be able to reach a customer service agent. For example when I had issues setting up my account on Outlook 2007 with Vista their first response was that they do not support Vista and if I would like they would charge me a $35 remote desktop assistance fee to try and fix the issue. After I sent them a scathing email they changed their mind and called me immediately and apologized, but that was 2 days later. They do have a very nice control panel and the Postini Spam blocker works like a charm but some things seem less than professional. For example in Outlook 2007 every time you open Outlook you will get an error that the ExchangeMyMail certificate is invalid.
Under Consideration - The Message Center - A relative of mine has just switched to The Message Center for Exchange and BES hosting. The cost for a Exchange mailbox is also $10 but it gives you a whopping 500mb of storage. The BES BlackBerry service is cheaper at only $9 a month and unlike other BES hosting there is no activation charge (usually $35) and they have contracts so you can cancel whenever you wish. The other nice thing I noticed is that they have a 90 day money back guarantee which makes trying them out much easier especially since there is no nonrefundable activation charge. Since they also use Postini for SPAM filtering I think they might be a good choice.
Review Sites - Exchange Hosting Reviews - I have been checking out reviews at this website without much luck. They recommend Sherweb which is a Canadian company who has really bad Canadian French speaking customer service agents so I decided against them. On the other hand they do offer 3GB of storage for the same $10 a month and also have an Exchange 2007Â setup. I am still going through the reviews but I thought I would put this out there also.
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August 15th, 2007 14:28
Have you looked at USA.NET ?
August 15th, 2007 16:00
David I just checked out USA.Net and I cant seem to find pricing or any other information on the site. What is so good about these guys?
August 16th, 2007 01:21
David
We are also long time customers of Exchange My Mail. We just migrated to their new system and got on the new plans. We now pay the same amount, and get more storage.
As for a 12 hour outage, i have not had any outages in quite some time. Maybe this was just affecting some small portion of customers.
As for support, we get great support, and at the few times we don’t get the responses we need, we just reply back in more detail, and everything works out.
Anyway - after moving from host to host, all i can tell you is the grass is not any greener on the other side. So far this has been the best decision we have made..
Good luck.
August 16th, 2007 03:25
have you spoken to them about additional space?
August 16th, 2007 08:23
BerryReview,
This is Nathan from Exchange Hosting Reviews. We do not recomend any specific company - all the results that you see there are based on user votes.
That said, the listing you see on the home pages is based on averages. So a company with 2 good reviews will have a higher average then a company with 100 votes with 95 good and 5 so-so reviews.
You really need to look at the number of reviews and the actual review comments to make an informed decision. Some companies offer cheaper pricing, while others are more expensive but offer 24/7 support. Of these some are email only, some are phone, some are by manned ouside the US and others are US based.
You can see the list of Exchange Hosting Companies at http://www.exchangehostingreviews.com/reviews.html including the number of reviews for each one.
August 16th, 2007 14:36
Peter,
I have emailed them about the extra space but they have not responded to both of my emails. They have outages about 3 times a month in my experience. Nothing has been a deal breaker but they just don’t seem to care as much they used to in the past. It used to be that you could call and get a support agent in less than 10 minutes now you are on hold for at least that long when there is an issue.
Could I ask which hosts you have tried out so that I can cross them off my list?
August 16th, 2007 14:39
Nathan,
I also wanted to ask you about the reviews. Is there a reason there is no category for TheMessageCenter or Mail2Web? I have been looking for a comprehensive list of exchange hosts but cannot seem to find one.
August 17th, 2007 09:34
BerryReview,
I just didn’t get around to adding them. I usually give preference to those who contact me.
That said, Microsoft does have a Hosted Exchange Server Partner Directory list at http://www.microsoft.com/serviceproviders/solutions/catalog.aspx
August 18th, 2007 23:54
Thanks Nathan I appreciate it! I was curious how Mail2Web looks for consumers. I am really trying to find a good host with a simple plan that gives me more than 100mb storage
August 21st, 2007 14:53
I’ll try and stay away from recomending 1 host or another, I pefer to have you do that based on other’s reviews.
That said, I did look into Mail2Web. The price seems OK for what you are describing, but I cannot speak to their customer service.
It looks like you are also looking for good support, and preferably US based. I’d suggest looking over the various hosts you considered (or those on our site), and see which ones offer the widest time span for support. Some offer 24×7, while other only have office hours support.
October 10th, 2007 12:44
[...] Previously I had mentioned that I was looking into alternative BES hosting companies and last month I changed to TheMessageCenter.com and have been quite happy since. This past week they sent me an email that their already generous 500MB of storage would be increased for all users to 1GB for free. Personally I think this is amazing since I could really use the extra space. I just thought I would let everybody know about the new update since my old BES hosting company was charging me the same price of $9.99 for only 200MB of Exchange space. They also have no BlackBerry activation fee and a 90 day money back guarantee if you just want to try them out. Check out the new rate plans over at TheMessageCenter.com [...]
October 11th, 2007 15:34
I’m currently using SherWeb’s Blackberry Hosting and I love it.
I just thought you guys should know
November 26th, 2007 12:28
[...] owner when I first was looking into the issue. You can see a bit about what I was comparing here: ADVICE NEEDED: Who Offers The Best BES / Exchange Hosting? | BerryReview I used to use exchangemymail.com but their 200mb storage limit does not hold a candle to the 1GB [...]
March 28th, 2008 12:09
I’ve been using Intermedia for my bes and exchange 07 hosting and I’ve had a good experience with them so far. If you are concerned with mailbox space they might be worth a look, as they offer pretty big mailboxes as well.
June 9th, 2008 10:52
Après quelques années avec Sherweb, nous quittons enfin vers un autre fournisseur. Sherweb a souvent des pannes sur son réseau, et même une panne a duré 24 heures. Ils sont également très stricts et peu compréhensifs envers les besoins de leurs clients. Je ne recommande absolument pas cette compagnie.
June 23rd, 2008 14:04
We are considering going to SherWeb. We have seen good reviews online about them. What do others here think about SherWeb?
August 4th, 2008 11:35
I am on SherWeb’s trial plan and do not plan on continuing. The biggest issue is that their performance is terrible. Connecting and retreiving messages is very slow. They also tend to drop connections a lot. Their customer service, while responsive, is not very good. They were unable to help me with two basic outlook issues.
August 5th, 2008 13:26
I am also looking for a BES hosting provider. Any recommendations? Like Rick B. customer service is a priority.
August 5th, 2008 14:44
@Steve
Personally I can recommend 3 BES hosting providers:
Mail2web
TheMessageCenter
Exchangemymail
In no specific order. I personally use The message center but the rest of the team uses Mail2Web and they love it.
August 6th, 2008 09:07
You should give us a try as well. We have been doing exchange and bes hosting for many years..have a solid value and experience with BES since the first version. Over 40% of our exchange accounts have BES. Call us and we will waive all activation fees including BES and give a 30 day free trial - just mention that you saw my post on this blog. No risk! We are that confident in our service and support.
888-509-8555 x302
August 6th, 2008 09:18
Link2Exchange has an excellent reputation. I just have no personal experience with the service. I always thought BES hosts should advertise more.
August 6th, 2008 09:48
Ronen - Thanks - I just submitted the form on your site because I am interested in advertising. We are always open to supporting blackberry oriented sites to keep them alive and helping the community.