Applications

Hosted Microsoft Everything

A new company in Seattle is working with another company you know all too well in order to enable you to deliver the services that are otherwise painful to manage.

by Alex Goldman ISP-Planet Managing Editor [December 13, 2006]

For a business founded just a few months ago, Seattle, Wash.-based Chinook Hosting has plenty to offer. The company specializes in offering hosted versions of Microsoft products to ISPs and VARs who have SOHO and small business customers. It already has products deployed and a couple of customers. It's gotten this far this fast because it is a subsidiary of Seattle, Wash.-based implement.com, which has been in business for seven years and has an established relatiionship with Seattle, Wash.-based Microsoft.

"A big part of our mission is to be as close as possible to the people who invent and refine this stuff, Microsoft and implement.com," says Greg Williams, president and co-founder of Chinook Hosting.

At ISP-Planet, we always recommend that up and coming ISPs find service providers and vendors who are also starting small and growing fast. Although the established players won't talk to you, the new companies will.

Chinook Hosting is specifically looking for ISP (and VAR) resellers. "Chinook's core mission is making these technologies easy to understand, easy to buy, and easy to sell. It's about making our resellers' and customers' lives easier," says Williams.

The products
Chinook sells small office Microsoft software products. It's based on Microsoft Exchange on the server side, Microsoft Office and Windows on laptops, and Windows Mobile on handheld devices.

Offerings, all based on Microsoft software, include:

• web, POP, and IMAP e-mail
• intranets and extranets with Sharepoint
• compliance
• ERP
• CRM
• mobility
• Outlook
• password protection for mobile devices

Williams says Chinook is the only organization that he knows of offering a specific security feature for mobile devices. He says that if an incorrect password is entered a pre-determined number of times, the solution can wipe the mobile device. This helps protect the device in the event that it is stolen.

Asked how large the company's data center is, Williams is proud to announce that the services are delivered from a very efficient footprint. "We believe we can support upwards of 50,000 users in our current deployment. The smallest data center I've seen is 5,000 square feet. Our current footprint is about 40 square feet."

So that's one cage? "Yes, I like to tell people that (aside from the raised floor) our solution is connected to our current data center by four bolts and four wires."

A Microsoft niche
Chinook has a niche. "Microsoft builds and sells terrific software solutions," says Williams. "inplement.com has made a business out of building software to ease deployment of those solutions and make them more cost effective."

In turn, Chinook takes these deployable solutions and hosts them for resellers.

"Part of making the software cost effective," Williams says, "is building an outstanding first tier support organization. Tier 1 support has to be of a certain size to be cost effective, and is better if the supporting organization already has a personal relationship with the end user. I believe that ISPs and integrators have the right relationships, with businesses from SOHO up to modest sized enterprises, and are open to outsourcing."

Williams understands that ISPs want to retain the billing relationship. "We rely on the ISP to do the billing," he says. "The customer need not be aware of our existence."

Interconnected services
"Most of these solutions are software," ISP-Planet notes. "But how do you deliver services to mobile devices."

Williams responds in detail. "Let's say a generic company, call it Acme Hardware, with 10 employees, goes to their local ISP and says they want all their employees to be able to get e-mail on their laptop and their Windows Mobile 5 mobile phone. The reseller (the local ISP) creates an organization in our web interface and assigns an administrator (it could be the ISP—integrators often prefer to do the administration, but some customers want to assign e-mail accounts and perform basic tasks themselves, so in this case, let's say it's Acme's HR director). The HR director obtains the password for each account and crease a usage plan and user name for each new account. The HR director can define policies, such as the number of times a user is allowed to enter an incorrect password."

Then the firm buys its hardware. "The HR director goes to the Dell website and orders laptops and goes to, say, Verizon's website and orders the Windows mobile phones. The director gives the devices to each employee with the correct password. The user sees the ISP's name, not Chinook's name."

Then the employees configure their devices. "Each employee downloads Outlook 2003 for the laptop. Then each employee picks up their phone and opens Microsoft ActiveSync. They enter the name of the server and their user name and password and then press Go. The software syncs e-mail to the phone. Thereafter, if the incorrect password is entered the number of times chosen by the HR director, all data assigned with the services on our phone is wiped. Of course, the data, such as e-mail and contacts, still exists on the server."

In the future, Williams hopes to simplify smart phone provisioning, requiring the user only to enter their phone number in order to configure the device.

The future
Of course, that's not the only aspect of the business Williams wants to change.

He wants to add storage to his service portfolio without actually storing the files themselves in his own rack. "We're looking for a storage partner," he says.

In general, he expects Microsoft software to eventually be able to do everything he does now, and do it for free. "It's an important part of our business model. Microsoft is hosting more and more of these services themselves. We need to be constantly in motion, ahead of the wave. We will offer more services, and when we do, we will integrate them with our other services."

Pricing and availability
Chinook's services are available to resellers now for a fixed monthly fee (with volume discounts and other discounts available).

Williams says that some resellers make a direct profit on Chinook services, while others put Chinook services into a bundle and make the money on other services.

— End