Product Insights: Exchange Online in Office 365

I've read through everything and we are impressed. We are weeks away from going to Google's Postini, but we may hold off.

Here is our scenario for now and I want to make sure it can work.

For Exchange, we just bought hardware, and Exchange 2010 a few months ago, so I don't think I can convince the rest of our partners to now not use this. Plus being the type of organization we are, we probably need to continue hosting ourself.

1) If we point MX records to this service, this will take care of all of our pre-scan, spam work? Can we still pull that mail back into our Exchange 2010 server after it's been washed by Exchange online?

2) Will there be a setting for Exchange online to retain the mail for archiving purposes, or since we are sending it back to our exchange is that not possible?

3) If we are able to pull mail back into our Exchange server, our Outlook 2010 client on our workstation will still work fine. if we can't, i assume we can point Outlook back to Exchange online? (two questions there sorry...)

4) I assume OWA can be pointed to a company's particular URL...for ours its mail.nccsa.org...is this possible?

5) I realize you said Windows, Iphone and Android will work correcty? I guess depending on your above answers to the questions will decide where we point our phones to retrieve mail.

In the end, we'd love to send the mail to Exchange online, wash it, then have our Exchange grab the mail so we can still use our in-house Exchange server.

thanks for this exciting product. I believe we are going to postpone Postini for this, especially if all the above is a possibility.

Jason

@Maria: First, you will be able to keep your domain with Ofice 365, so you won't have to worry about that. And when you get access to the beta or trial version, you will be able to migrate your email from Hotmail to Office 365. Lastly, Office 365 gives you the ability to ust Exchange Online (therefore not having to use Outlook), but you can still use Outlook if you choose. All data syncs both ways, so you can use Outlook on your home or work PC and use the browser when you are on the go.

@Jason and @Doug: Let me get back to you shortly, want to confirm my answer to I provide the correct information.

@Doug: You do have the option of continuing to use your on-premises Barracuda Spam Firewall. Email can flow through your on-premises servers and then be routed to O365 for all cloud mailboxes.  However, Office 365 has enterprise-class spam and virus filtering provided by Forefront Online Protection for Exchange (built-in and provided at no extra cost).  So, most customers decide to switch their MX records to the cloud after their migration to Office 365 is complete, so they can stop maintaining (and paying for) any other spam filtering solutions they were previously using.

: Allen_MSFT wrote: "Yes, in Office 365, you can use the Distribution List approach described above.  You can also assign multiple email addresses to a user (joe@contoso.com, joe@contosotravel.com. joseph.user@contosotravel.com, etc) and that user will be able to receive email at all of those addresses."

Originally, we were told an email address constitutes a user license. If the above is true, what is to stop a large company creating 500 email accounts for $6 a month?

I loved the solution but i have some questions

1. does the users connect via MAPI session or HTTPS connection

2. As it manager which permissions i have when using power shell

3. if i have an archive systems can i still use it on the cloud environment

4. How does the ldap connection to my AD will be secure

Is there any encrypted mail component with hosted Exchange? Is it possible to use 3rd party email encryption services if one is not offered via hosted exchange? Thanks

Jason, you probably can create a cname DNS alias for mail.nccsa.org to point to whatever A record they have for their OWA URL.  We did that for our BPOS implementation.

I love the idea of Office 365.  I'm just sad that it's come out so darn late.  (Exchange 2010 was released back in 11/09 - my organization has been stuck on 2007 BPOS for over a year, and we still don't have a solid date on when we're getting converted.) I have to fight all these Google Apps proponents with a stick, and it's tiring. =\

@AM - I feel you. Sometimes people don't know what is good for them. Just as kids always do when they discover that you have been looking out for their best interest all the while they were fighting you to let them be, I am sure they will thank you later. I can't imagine using Google Apps, a consumer class product in my business.

So is there a mechanism if switching from Google Apps on our own domain to import existing Gmail?

@mch: These are SMTP email addresses, so you will be able to receive incoming email through these which will be routed directly to whatever user accounts you choose. You will need to reply from your actual user account. So if you want to your 500 person org to handle all email through 1 inbox, that solution is possible. Good luck with that :).

@ykh:

1) both

2) same as with Exchange Server, read more on our Service descriptions page 34: www.microsoft.com/.../details.aspx

3) Archiving info is located in the service description as well, just do a Ctrl-f (search) for Archiving

4) Not sure I understand that one, can you ask again?

@AM: I apologize for the situation, that is just one of the troubles we always run into as a company. When you are always releasing and then releasing and now migrating, you end up with these situations. The only thing I can add is to say thanks for sticking with us, it will be worth it.

@GP: We will provide migration support for Gmail to Office 365, mostly through POP/IMAP, read more here: www.microsoft.com/.../details.aspx

Contacts and Calendar info is still coming.

Hi

Will we be able to set up transport rules for journaling reports easily?

Jeremy

From Japan

Check out the Exchange Services descriptions and search for Journaling -> http://bit.ly/iaxtxq

Will the PowerShell commandlets allowing configuration of blocked/allowed device ID's for ActiveSync clients be available in both the small business and enterprise version of Exchange Online with the 365 offering?

Hi, I wanted to get an understanding of how this could work with Blackberry server integration, or if its possible to do active sync on compatable handsets that are running mail for exchange software (IE - Symbian Nokia phones). Can you give me some insights?

Cheers

We are a virtual start-up company limping along with Google Apps, anxiously waiting for 365 to deploy. Tried to sign up for 365 Beta, but never got a response from MS at all. Can you predict when 365 will be released????