Page 62 - MS Office 365 for Dummies 3rd Ed (2019)

someone to develop the software, they don’t even have to worry about stretching their valuable IT resources beyond the breaking point. And, should the worst-case event happen, another company is liable for the problem based on the service contract signed.
Because the hosting company is liable for anything that goes wrong with hosted software, making sure that the company is reputable and capable of dealing with a major issue is important. Microsoft is one of the biggest names in the software industry with an established business record and lots of money in the bank. Your cousin’s friend who started hosting software in his basement probably doesn’t have the same resources Microsoft has in case something goes wrong.
Flexible provisioning
In addition to the predictability of the deployment costs in both time and resources, Exchange Online offers the ability to easily adjust the number of licenses for peo- ple using the software. A hiring manager might plan to hire 45 people but find out later in the year that the company needs to hire another 30 as it is growing more rapidly than expected. It is easy to provision new users for Office 365 through the simple administrative interface.
Another benefit of SaaS software is that CTO–types can find out exactly what the costs will be now and in the future. The CTO doesn’t need to explain why the proj- ect was eight times over budget or why four more people were required for the IT team to support the new software. The price in resources, people, and time is very transparent and obvious from the beginning. In other words, the costs are predictable, which is what accounting people and executives like to see.
Continuous availability
Although it may seem blatantly obvious that software should be available all the time, you may be surprised by how many enterprise systems are only available during certain business hours. Exchange Online is available all day, every day, without interruption. In fact, Microsoft guarantees a 99.9 percent uptime.
Simplified administration
If you have ever spent time talking with someone who is responsible for configur- ing Exchange Server, you know that it is not for the faint of heart. In fact, many people are so specialized that their entire careers are spent doing nothing but administering the Exchange Server software. If your organization is lucky enough to employ a full-time team of these rock-star administrators, then you have
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