Small and mid-size businesses including GoldMail adopt new features
2010-10-21
Intermedia, the world's largest Microsoft Exchange hosting provider, today enhanced its HostPilot™ Control Panel with tools that further simplify customer control over their hosted Exchange and other hosted business communications. Part of HostPilot Control panel release 1.51, the new tools save customers time by securely extending additional administrative controls – such as password changes and call forwarding – to end users. The release also offers new options for customers to monitor their service status, including via SMS text message updates. The features are immediately available to all Intermedia customers.
"We don't want to worry about managing the infrastructure ourselves," says Mark Pierce, VP of business development and sales, GoldMail. "With Intermedia we have the uptime, stability and service we need for our business communications for an affordable monthly fee. We can focus on building our business, not on maintaining our email platform. Transparency into our account’s service status also makes a difference. We can get updates in HostPilot and, with the latest updates, automatically by text message to our cell phones."
HostPilot Control Panel provides business owners and IT managers with a single point of control over their Intermedia-hosted communications services. Its intuitive features enable complex Exchange administration – such as remotely wiping data from a lost BlackBerry Wireless Handheld™ – to be delegated to non-technical staff.
Highlights of the release include:
- Greater end-user control. End-users now have access to My Services (Intermedia's end-user control panel) via both Outlook and Outlook Web Access. Users can easily manage their own settings in My Services via Outlook, such as changing their password, setting up Find Me/Follow Me call forwarding in hosted PBX, or acquiring set up instructions for Office Communications Server (OCS) instant messaging, all without additional authentication – saving account administrators’ valuable time.
- Simplify account administrator control. With the redesign of the Exchange mailbox section in HostPilot, the administrator experience is more intuitive. Intermedia reduced the number of clicks required to view and manage mailboxes and users, improved overall speed and performance, and enhanced usability with user-interface testing.
- Hosted PBX VoIP-based telephony solution enhancements. Intermedia continues to enhance its hosted PBX offering. Customers can now enjoy augmented features such as the "ring all" option in Hunt Groups, which rings all employees in a Hunt Group at once in order to reduce caller wait time.
- Customer communication system. The system enables Intermedia to send targeted, proactive messaging to customers informing them of maintenance events and other service issues. Impacted customers will receive event notifications on their HostPilot landing page, by email, and, if they wish, SMS text message. These customer communication enhancements help Intermedia customers stay in-the-know regarding service events.
"These updates are part of our continued effort to improve the service we provide our customers," says Jonathan McCormick, COO, Intermedia. "We keep the small and medium-sized business in mind when we look to develop new features and increase customer control over their business communications."