Star’s New ‘Credit Crunch Friendly’ Business Email Service Now Available for UK Enterprises

Published 18th May 2009

Star Business Email now includes a Managed Service for Dedicated Exchange providing tailored email solutions with the highest levels of security, performance and resiliency

London, 23rd April 2009 – Star, the UK’s only business focussed ISP, has today announced the launch of a new business email service for more demanding UK organisations. Delivered on an advanced ‘cloud computing’ platform this service builds on the success of the Star Business Email service and, like its sister product, is designed to help UK organisations significantly cut the cost of their in house business email solutions. As Star data centres are integrated into the NetStarIP MPLS network, Star can provide a level of customer service beyond similar providers and can include the management of any Internet and wide area connections within an industry leading service level agreement.

The new service is based on a dedicated Microsoft Exchange 2007 platform and is positioned to support organisations looking to significantly cut the spiralling costs and management headache of business email, but who need a level of customisation. Star has recognised that some enterprises require tailored solutions to meet their specific needs. With the addition of the new Dedicated Exchange service, Star can now offer business grade email solutions right across the business spectrum, with a real world service level agreement of 99.9%, so customers don’t need to worry about email downtime.

Star Dedicated Exchange is designed to meet an organisation’s more specific IT requirements. It combines the flexibility of a customised solution with a robust architecture, and is managed and supported by Microsoft accredited expert engineers around the clock, every day of the year. The service guarantees availability of business email and is supported by the highest levels of security and resilience.

The service is easily scalable with the changing needs of a business and is available at a low, predictable monthly cost without the need for any capital expenditure. Pricing is available on application, as it is subject to any specific requirements. User costs decrease on a sliding scale in line with the increasing number of email users supported. A typical example for a system supporting 500 business email users with 1 GB mailboxes would be £7.65 per user per month - representing a potentially significant saving and improvement in efficiency when compared to an on premise Microsoft Exchange solution, managed by an in house IT team.

Bansh Mistry Head of IT at RMD Kwikform, a construction industry solutions provider, comments, “Having a reliable and robust business email system is an operational imperative for our global business. We depend and rely on not only a secure system but require access to it on a 24 hour basis. By partnering with Star we now have a system that I can rely on with confidence and there is minimum management input from my team so our in house IT function can now focus on delivering more strategic IT solutions to the business. We no longer waste time worrying about downtime and other email related management issues. The system is managed around the clock by a talented technical team who demonstrate impressive levels of customer service – no problem, it seems, is too small.”

James Griffin, Head of Hosting Strategy at Star comments, “The launch of Star Business Email’s Dedicated Exchange service underlines our commitment to providing the right solution to meet the requirements of our customers. It’s the perfect fit for companies looking for a fully supported and cost effective way of managing email, with access to the latest Microsoft email technology. It’s a different proposition to the Star Business Email service offered to our SME customers at £8.99 per user per month, as it allows a truly tailored solution for the enterprise sector where integration into third party systems, such as CRM and ERP software is critical to their needs.”

Rick Hudson, CEO of Star concludes, “I’m proud of how Star has taken on the challenges of the current economic environment and continues to develop and launch services that remove the unpredictable expenditure associated with purchasing and maintaining a tailored, high performance, in house IT solution. With the launch of Dedicated Exchange, Star continues to minimise the operational and financial risks associated with large IT investments for our customers. With huge pressures on all UK businesses to get the most from their resources, migrating to our cloud services not only makes good financial sense, it also offloads day-to-day tasks for the management and maintenance of the system, reducing the risks of downtime and data loss associated with running business email in house.” For more information on Star Business Email please go to: www.star.co.uk/email.

Star is positioning itself as a leading provider of Utility Computing services to help deliver on its commitment to help UK businesses reduce the burden of in house IT. A whitepaper on how Utility Computing can help cut communications costs can be freely downloaded from the Star website homepage on: www.star.co.uk. Also, for further information on how Star is building a cloud services infrastructure to support UK customers go to: www.buildingthecloud.co.uk.