ExchangeDefender Blog

timmytokensOwn Web Now Corp and Scorpion Software are teaming up on an exciting new service that helps your passwords more secure and less likely to be compromised, guessed or sniffed by hackers. Using token-based (keychain) one time passwords improves the security of the organization by allowing remote and mobile workers to provide one time passwords when they login remotely from a less secure location.

How does it work?

Logging into an organization requires a username and a password, but if you are using a shared connection, computer that may have keylogger installed, system compromised by spyware those credentials can be stolen. The token that you are issued as a part of our service has a password that changes every 60 seconds. When you attempt to login to your organization you will be asked for the password currently displayed on the device. Only the server and the token know the correct password at that time so even if your password should happen to be compromised and stolen hackers will not be able to use your password alone to gain access to your organization.

Offer Details

AuthAnvil tokens will be available with full service and support for $20 per user per month. There are no minimums, you can sign up a single user. Shipping is free as is the ongoing support, setup and service. We have worked very hard to deliver a solution that is the most flexible, affordable and meaningful for the SMB market and we look forward to offering you more ways to trust that your information stored in the cloud can only be accessed by you.

Due to heavy demand by our ever increasing mobile customer base, Own Web Now proudly announces immediate availability of BlackBerry Enterprise Server. BlackBerry users can now use fully featured synchronization between their mobile BlackBerry devices and Own Web Now hosted Exchange 2007 services. BES service is available at a low monthly fee as an addon to our hosting services. BlackBerry is the #1 selling smartphone in North America and among the most demanded business communication devices by our customer base and we are glad to finally offer you this option.

In addition to BlackBerry Enterprise Server, Own Web Now fully supports Blackberry, Windows Mobile, iPhone 2.0 as well as every POP3/IMAP based device that can communicate with Exchange over SSL.

Over the past few days we have missed our SLA on a number of support requests in the support queue, order queue and maintenance queues. An upgrade to the support portal on July 10th included a new algorithm for privacy control and support request routing, meant to allow for different types of support requests to be entered into the system but not visible to the entire staff. Accounting would see accounting requests, Support would see support requests, Executives would see executive requests and so on. In process of enabling the SLA against the requests we improperly routed a number of requests to the executive queue which was not monitored from Friday until today. We have addressed and corrected the issue and are moving the tickets and responding to them as fast as possible.

If you experienced an issue that was reported through our support system and was not answered in a timely manner we apologize and promise to have all support requests addressed today. Thank you for your patience.

It has been quite a while since we introduced a new feature to ExchangeDefender. This is mainly because we have been hard at work on ExchangeDefender 4.0 whose LiveArchive backend is completely different from the present one. But we have heard the pain and thanks to the number of very compelling arguments we now support transparent archiving of outbound mail as well as inbound mail via LiveArchive.

Service is already provisioned and active for everyone that relies on LiveArchive. You do not have to do anything to activate the outbound archiving component. This new feature brings us one step closer to giving you a fully redundant mail solution within ExchangeDefender portfolio.

For more details on LiveArchive please see the ExchangeDefender web site LiveArchive overview.

Joining us to wrap up the Microsoft WPC is Matt Makowicz from Ambition Consulting and Endevor, a Microsoft Gold Certified Partner and an ExchangeDefender marketing powerhouse! Matt talks about the overall impressions with the event and how different it was this year in particular:

  • Business maturity
  • Change in partner profile at WPC
  • Passions of Vista stop short
  • Partner training and ambitionmission.com

Click here to download the podcast, runtime 30 minutes.

Joining us today live from Microsoft WPC in Houston are two partners from the opposite sides of the globe and opposite business models in the IT business. They are both great proponents of OwnWebNow and our services so we got them on to discuss the Microsoft’s new direction and how it impacts their business.

CALVERT Dean Calvert is the president of Calvert Technologies, Microsoft Gold Certified Partner and Small Business Specialist from Adelaide, Australia. Dean’s firm specializes in network design, management and technical consulting. Dean was recently a Microsoft PAL and has been recognized for many years as an expert Microsoft MVP in Small Business Server product.

Vijay Riyait is the managing director of iQubed, Microsoft Small Business Specialist from Leicester and a leader in the SMB community, working with Microsoft as a PAL representing SBSC interests of the community to Microsoft. Beyond that, Vijay’s company focuses on on SharePoint and Information Worker technologies, their development and use in SMB.

Wednesday was the final keynote day at Microsoft WPC 2008 and we caught up to Vijay and Mark for a first impression of where they believe they can use their significant expertise to impact their clients business and grow their own as well. Discussion included:

  • Use of SharePoint in social networking cases
  • Australian SMB owner habits and hosted services penetration
  • Discussion over the changing business models with the services in mind
  • SBS and EBS importance and expectations
  • Partner Program changes and the impact on you.

Click here to download the podcast, runtime 30 minutes.

bannerScott Colson, Microsoft CRM MVP and Vice President of Autonomix (Gold Certified Partner from Seattle) has been a long time friend and partner of Own Web Now. Autonomix specializes in Microsoft CRM deployments and given the recent launch of Microsoft CRM Online and Microsoft S+S announcements from WPC, he was the best candidate to discuss the further Microsoft penetration into the area of services and where this leaves us Microsoft partners. Scott joined us live from the Microsoft WPC keynote with Ballmer in the background to talk about:

  • Microsoft Software + Services
  • Status of Microsoft CRM Online and direction so far
  • Personal take on what Software + Service means for us
  • The opportunity for partners to use Microsoft in this space
  • SBS and EBS annoumcements

.. and we also discussed Scott’s key area of expertise: Delivering Microsoft Dynamics solutions, in particular CRM. Besides being the person to call for ExchangeDefender in the Seattle area, Scott and OWN share a client that has leveraged the online CRM solution for their business. Scott talks about the partnership process and the value delivery in services beyond infrastructure and why they are so critical to the businesses we all serve. An excellent interview to consider not just from the S+S news perspective but also possible business ventures you can pursue with CRM (and with Scott of course!) For more information, take a look at his web site: http://www.autonomix.com

Click here to download the podcast, runtime 30 minutes.

bg_c31bMark Crall, MCP, PAL from Charlotte Tech Care Team joins us live from Microsoft Worldwide Partner Conference to discuss the news and events from the first two days and PAL meetings affecting the SBSC:

  • Launch date SBS and EBS announced
  • Upcoming changes to the SBSC requirements
  • Free SBS 2008 exam vouchers
  • Changes to the Microsoft partner program for SMB
  • Software + Services
  • Tech business in Charlotte

Mark runs Charlotte Tech Care Team (OWN ExchangeDefender, Exchange 2007 partner) in Charlotte, NC and has a very popular blog covering the SBSC & MSP buzz. If you need tech work in Charlotte, SMB support services, ongoing managed IT care, any of our OWN products, VoIP/ResponsePoint product support you can reach Mark at (704) 248-8328.

Click here to download the podcast, runtime 30 minutes.

SBS Show, famous online podcast originally recorded over the past two years by Vlad Mazek and Chris Rue is back. Joining Vlad as the cohost is Dave Sobel, of Evolve Technologies serving the greater Washington DC / Virginia metro area. Since 2005, SBS Show has built a large audience and many of the older recordings are still used as some of the best references on best practices and growing an SMB technology firm.

SBS Show has grown over the years to build a large audience and a partner-based social network, all designed to help partners discover solutions together and network for greater profit. Vlad and Dave will also be changing the format slightly to compensate for the change in the marketplace and interest among the audience – the show will have more business content and the technical discussions will be at a higher level discussing the more interesting parts of technology and its implementation.

Additionally, the SBS Show now comes with the new “extended cut” subscription with the longer discussion of the subject, available for those who are looking for more details and a more formal training discussion. Further details on this are available at the SBS Show’s new home: http://www.SMBBuddy.com

Take a listen to the show today, in SBS Show #26.5 Vlad and Dave talk about the recent events in the SMB technology field, changes needed to the business in the current economy, growth pains as well as expectations and mission at the Microsoft WPC.

You can listen to the latest new show #26.5 directly from our web site at http://www.ownwebnow.com

. . .

In addition to sponsoring the SMB Buddy we are also proudly announcing a podcast series covering the partner and solution space around Own Web Now services and people and technologies we work with every day. Join us this week to hear from our partners attending the Microsoft WPC 2008.

One day after our UK launch we are taking another giant step in our mission to level the world of hosted business services. Today we proudly announce the launch of our Australian line of business, with Exchange 2007, SharePoint v3, Virtual Hosting with the same features, higher storage limits and most importantly, the same price as in United States and Europe.

We would like to again thank our partners in Australia for making this possible with the help of Equinix, SuperMicro and Microsoft. Our partners from Australia and New Zealand have made ExchangeDefender and ShockeyMonkey into a huge regional success and we are doing our part to help our partners from down under add more services to their portfolios. We believe that making these services affordable will open up a lot of opportunities for our partners to provide additional services on top of Exchange and SharePoint that would otherwise not be possible for customers that are not interested or in a position to design servers and reliable network infrastructure required to support their business.

All services will be branded and centrally managed through the upcoming OWN Service Manager portals that will extend the partners brand over services and solutions delivered from our two data centers in Sydney. Portion of profits will be used to help support the local ITPRO communities across Australia.

We would also like to extend special thanks to several individuals that made these moves possible: Dean Calvert of Calvert Technologies, Wayne Small of Correct Solutions, Robbie Upcroft of Microsoft Corp, Jared Hirst of Equinix as well as thousands of partners across Australia and New Zealand that have done business with us throughout the years and demanded these solutions in their country to help serve the emerging market in need of technology business management beyond network infrastructure design and upkeep.

Thank you!

Sincerely,

Vlad Mazek, MCSE
CEO, Own Web Now Corp