BizEd signs SaaS deal with Hostworks

Stan Beer
Thursday, 19 October 2006 16:33

IT Industry - Deals

Australian outsourced provider of learning and development services BizEd Services has signed a three-year Software as a Service (SaaS) agreement for Hostworks to deliver Microsoft Exchange and Microsoft Office applications to its staff throughout Australia and New Zealand.

The Hostworks Software as a Service solution gives BizEd employees access to hosted versions of software applications including Microsoft Exchange, Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Project and Visio. These applications are purchased on a per-user, per-month basis, with the ability to vary the number of users as the business grows and changes.

BizEd Services IT Manager Craig Horton said the company faced a number of challenges to support staff working across multiple offices. “The Hostworks solution means that wherever we travel in the world, we have a managed Exchange Server and file servers from one location,” he said.

“The Hostworks model offers us greater flexibility for supporting our distributed offices. Its data centre provides a secure infrastructure which is a great reassurance in terms of Business Continuity and Disaster Recovery Planning. Hostworks offers all the security bells and whistles we require.

“Hostworks lets us operate PCs and servers at about half the cost of running them internally. Using Hostworks’ Software as a Service, we get our software licensing at a reasonable rate.”

Since its 2003 purchase of Dimension Data Central, Hostworks has made a major investment in deploying second generation SaaS technology.