When you are considering a new avenue in your IT, you need to think about the benefits that it can bring to your organisation and the impact that it will have on your work. Tobit’s David was an email software package that emerged back in 1997 and integrated faxes, emails, text messages and more into one application. Tobit’s David is still used by businesses yet those considering alternatives may be looking at the more mainstream options of Exchange Server or Exchange Online in Office 365 from Microsoft.
Benefits of Exchange Online in Office 365
Exchange Online is Microsoft’s Cloud alternative to the traditional on-premise Exchange server. If you’re considering migrating from Tobit’s David to a Microsoft Exchange option then you may find that the Office 365 avenue is more cost effective and secure. In this blog, we thought we would look at the benefits that Exchange Online can bring to your business, as well as how to migrate from Tobit’s David to Office 365.
Cost-Effective
If you would rather opt for an on-premise solution when migrating from Tobit then a traditional Exchange server is the option for you. However, you need to consider the outlay and investment of this hardware. With a traditional on-premise Exchange server, you would need to purchase hardware and maintain it, which of course comes with high up-front costs.
Exchange Online, as a Cloud solution, works on a more op-ex basis rather than cap-ex. You pay a small fee per user per month for the Exchange license and you don’t need to buy any hardware as you are renting it from Microsoft. The hardware sits in Microsoft’s datacenters and is accessed via an Internet connection. The biggest benefit financially of opting for a Cloud email platform is that you are not responsible for replacing the hardware. You won’t have to get a new Exchange server in five years’ time. You will always be on the latest version and won’t have to consider hardware replacements in your budget.
Security
As previously mentioned, Exchange Online and Office 365 are hosted in Microsoft’s datacenters. Let’s face it, Microsoft has a lot more money than the majority of businesses to invest in security. In your business right now, your email server might be protected by some software, a locked door and some CCTV. Exchange Online means that your email is hosted in a datacenter that is protected by security guards, biometric access, backup generators and more. Microsoft have invested heavily in state-of-the-art security and infrastructure to protect their customer’s data.
Office 365
One of the biggest benefits that can come with Exchange Online is Office 365. To explain how it works, Exchange Online is part of Office 365 and the most basic package you can opt for in Office 365 just has Exchange Online. If you want to, you can opt for more expensive packages that offer more benefits. The best way to look at Exchange Online is as the core of Office 365 that you can then build on with more benefits and applications. For example, you could opt for Office 365 Business Essentials which is around £1 or so more and you gain access to Skype for Business, OneDrive for Business, Microsoft Teams and Office Online (your Office packages but only available through the browser).
You could then go further and invest a little more and have access to packages like Office 365 Business Premium which gives you the full Office Suite across multiple devices with Word, Excel and other applications. Your Office suite will then always be the most recent version so you don’t need to consider upgrading licenses every few years as well.
Migrating from Tobit’s David to Office 365
If you are currently exploring the possibility of migrating your organisation’s email from Tobit’s David to Office 365 you may not know where to start or if it is even possible. ACUTEC has developed software to make the process of migrating your mailboxes easy and manageable. If you are considering Exchange server or Exchange Online as an option for your migration from Tobit then please do get in contact today (or when you are ready) by calling 01675 469020 or emailing hello@acutec.co.uk.
