04-03-2007, 01:30 PM
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Contributing Editor
Join Date: Feb 2007
Posts: 3,111
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4SmartPhone.net Offering Free Licensed Copies Of Outlook 2007
"Not sure when they updated it, but 4Smartphone.net now offers a licensed download of Outlook 2007 with their top two hosted Exchange plans. What this means is: for $84 annually (the Professional plan), you get a hosted Exchange service, direct push e-mail support, 1 GB of storage capacity for your mail, nightly backups and Outlook 2007 included."
You won't see this on their service plan features page, but |
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04-03-2007, 04:20 PM
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Neophyte
Join Date: Jul 2006
Posts: 5
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I know I may be a little naive to expect something for free, but shouldn't this read ".... free Outlook 2007 with hosted plan? I almost sprained my wrist clicking on this from an RSS feed.
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04-03-2007, 07:03 PM
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Editor Emeritus
Join Date: Dec 2005
Posts: 214
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I subscribed to 4smartphone for about a year, just switched off in January. In that time, I had only one issue with service. It was the day after I signed up, email was very slow to get pushed to me.
During that time, I had a hard time contacting support. My plan indicated there was phone support available. When I called, their attitude and response was less than professional. They sounded angry that I called, suggested that I wait until it started working again, and try back in a couple days.
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04-03-2007, 07:35 PM
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Thinker
Join Date: Nov 2007
Posts: 444
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I've used them for about a year as well, and have a couple technical issues which haven't been resolved. One is that, unlike my Exchange account at work, I can't get Outlook to remember my 4smarphone password between sessions. The other is some obscure error on the Exchange server which they tell me to ignore but which generates an error message at every sync. In both cases, they're aware of the problem but can't provide a workable solution.
I also find the connection to be slow. I have 15mbit downstream, and 4smartphone is the only service I have issues with. I've been thinking about switching to 1and1 since they appear to have greater capacity.
Lastly, I appreciate the announcement here, but I'm disappointed that I didn't find out about this from the company itself. You'd think that they'd want to ensure that their existing customers knew about a deal like this.
:?
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04-03-2007, 07:37 PM
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Ponderer
Join Date: Oct 2003
Posts: 58
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I hope that this means they'll be moving to the new exchange versions as well soon. I can't wait to get html email working on my device.
I agree with the criticism on their support, every now and then they'll go down and there is no way of know why, or when it'll be resolved.
A simple network status page would help so much.
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04-03-2007, 07:55 PM
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Pupil
Join Date: Jul 2002
Posts: 41
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For all who don't know, the company just went through a 44 hour outage with little to no explanation until AFTER it was over. They made no attempts other than a simply and uninformative post on their homepage saying they were having a problem and were working on it. They never even updated that. No emails were answered. No phone calls returned.
I'm still with them because my initial move to mail2web showed messages being delivered a full 10 minutes slower than 4smartphone and mail2web couldn't explain why. When I find a comparable host that has phone support and Exchange 2007, I'll consider switching to it.
For now I gamble on 4smartphone not crashing again. Shiver!
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04-03-2007, 08:02 PM
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Intellectual
Join Date: Nov 2003
Posts: 181
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I have not experienced any of these issues with 4smartphone. My service has been very reliable since December of 2005 and synchronizing has been very easy and not slow at all. However, every time I read about someone's issues with their service it makes me consider moving to 1and1.com. I had considered this company initially but decided to go with 4smartphone and have been pleased. If the problems some people are commenting about in relation to 4smartphone continue I will be making a change though.
A deal such as Outlook 2007 would tempt me if I were not already with their service. I will probably download it soon to give it a try, since it is included with my services, but it won't be enough to keep me as a customer if they don't keep their servers working more reliably. Redundancy might cost a bit but I'm sure it would be worth it...instead of chancing a loss of everything.
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04-03-2007, 08:43 PM
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Pupil
Join Date: Dec 2002
Posts: 21
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I've had 4smartphone for a year now and am quite pleased with their service. For whatever reason, I was not affected by their recent outage. They always respond to my emails within 24 hours and are quite helpful on the phone (although I had to dig around to find their phone number on their website). I've emailed them with several small requests over this past year (change my display name, whitelist my account from their spam filter, etc) and they have been very accomodating. Its definitely very alarming to know they were down for 44 hours but as long as these issues continue not to affect me, I plan on sticking with them.
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04-03-2007, 09:09 PM
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Intellectual
Join Date: Aug 2006
Posts: 144
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I went through 2 outages with 4smartphone over the past 2 months.
I just switched to Sherweb...great service. Fast delivery of the email and a live person that you can speak with if you have issues. They also offer Outlook 2007 for hosted accounts as well as a SharePoint portal for $8.95 a month.
EDIT: Oh, the storage space is 1.25 GB as well as fully configurable virus/spam protection through Barracuda.
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04-03-2007, 10:45 PM
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Pupil
Join Date: Feb 2007
Posts: 37
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mail2web offer Outlook 2007 as part of their Proffesional Exchange program. You can sign up for their free push service and that gives you acces to OWA and works great! 
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