Azaleos Corporation, the global managed messaging, collaboration and unified communications services company, today announced two new services designed for enterprises that want a new Microsoft SharePoint 2010 system that deploys quickly and does not require local IT management. Azaleos SharePoint Starter Edition and Azaleos SharePoint Core Edition provide drop and go managed SharePoint outsourcing alternatives to the existing Azaleos SharePoint Premier Edition.

“With our new three tiered offerings – SharePoint Starter Edition, SharePoint Core Edition and the existing SharePoint Premier Edition – Azaleos can get the implementation done right the first time and keep the system working smoothly as new users and SharePoint apps come online.”

According to Forrester’s July 2011 Global SharePoint Usage Online Survey, 57% of organizations surveyed have already deployed SharePoint 2010… Yet in the same survey, 41% responded that deployment took longer than expected1. Azaleos SharePoint Starter Edition enables smaller enterprises and departments within large enterprises to get a simple managed SharePoint system up and running fast. For larger enterprises adopting the powerful collaboration system for the first time, but uncertain of their needs, SharePoint Core Edition provides more robust management services with a fixed set of functionality.

“SharePoint is notoriously difficult to architect, deploy and manage. This makes outsourcing SharePoint private cloud systems to Azaleos experts a very attractive option to companies of all sizes including large departments within national and global organizations,” said Scott Gode, vice president of product management and marketing at Azaleos.

“With our new three tiered offerings – SharePoint Starter Edition, SharePoint Core Edition and the existing SharePoint Premier Edition – Azaleos can get the implementation done right the first time and keep the system working smoothly as new users and SharePoint apps come online,” he added.

Azaleos SharePoint Starter Edition
For large departmental rollouts or pilots within an enterprise, SharePoint Starter Edition provides a fast, affordable, and reliable SharePoint deployment that requires only minimal care and feeding. The managed service combines rapid deployment with basic monitoring, management and support for SharePoint infrastructures that can be deployed in a private cloud, at a third party datacenter, or on the customer premises. The Azaleos SharePoint Starter Edition includes:
• Capacity for up to 200GB of storage and up to 1,000 users
• Full support for search, out of box SharePoint templates, My Sites and SharePoint Portals
• Service Level Agreements (SLA) with minimum of 99.5% uptime guarantees
• 9AM EST to 9PM EST monitoring and management
• Rapid deployment options starting at 40 hours

Azaleos SharePoint Core Edition
To meet the requirements of mid-to-large enterprises deploying a new SharePoint infrastructure for the first time, SharePoint Core Edition provides full monitoring and management with a fixed set of functionality. SharePoint Core Edition includes:
• Capacity for up to 1TB of storage and up to 10,000 users
• Full support for search, out of box SP templates, My Sites and SP Portals as well as BCS (Business Connectivity Services), Performance Point, Infopath Forms, Access, Visio and Excel services
• Azaleos Service Level Agreements (SLA) starting at 99.9% uptime guarantees
• Standard Azaleos 24×7 monitoring and management
• Capacity and sizing consulting using the Azaleos SharePoint Calculator

As requirements change and greater functionality and customization are required, both the Starter and Core Edition services can be seamlessly upgraded to the SharePoint Premier Edition.

“The advantage of these new Azaleos offerings is that customers will never grow out of the service, since they can easily upgrade when and if their needs change. They are also fully private cloud enabled. Unlike SharePoint public cloud services, Azaleos does not force customers to compromise on features, security, uptime or customizability,” said Gode.

Availability and Pricing
The two new Azaleos Managed SharePoint Services editions are available immediately. SharePoint Starter Edition is priced at $2,000 per month for services and $26,000 for hardware. SharePoint Core Edition pricing is based on hardware and storage options required.