“We chose Microsoft hosted email instead of Google Apps because it had all the familiar features we needed, offered a painless upgrade, and required zero training.”

Mike Boone, Director of Program Development, Capstone Real Estate Services

Capstone Real Estate Services provides management services for residential and commercial properties. Facing an upgrade of its on-premises email solution, it opted for a hosted model and chose Microsoft Exchange Online. Instead of spending U.S.$18,000 for an on-premises upgrade, Capstone gained the email, archiving, and antivirus functionality it required at a low monthly cost. Now it can allocate scarce IT resources to more strategic projects.

Business NeedsSince its founding in 1969, Capstone Real Estate Services has provided property and asset management services for its clients and their residents. As a third-party real estate management company, Capstone provides personalized service without the distraction that ownership can bring. The company maintains 12 offices across 7 states and employs more than 1,100 people to manage approximately 40,000 multifamily units and 1 million square feet of commercial space.

Recently, Capstone faced an upgrade to its email solution: an on-premises installation of the Microsoft Exchange Server 2003 messaging and collaboration software that was managed by a network administration company for U.S.$2,400 a month. It cost Capstone an extra $1,700 a year for an email security solution that didn’t perform up to expectations. Also, Capstone did not have a viable email archiving solution. The network administration company only saved emails for 60 days. If Capstone management needed to find an email prior to 60 days, it required a manual search through the company’s backup tapes.

Director of Program Development, Mike Boone, took these challenges and turned them into an opportunity to explore a more cost-effective option for providing a

commodity IT service to the 620 Capstone employees who use email. Of these, approximately 480 remote employees and 40 data processing staff members in corporate offices use only the browser-based email client, Microsoft Office Outlook Web Access, a built-in component of Exchange Server.

“The cost of maintaining email had grown to the point where we had to put strategic IT projects on hold,” Boone says. “With a stringent IT budget, I wanted to allocate funds where they would generate the best value to the business. That doesn’t include paying for administering email servers.”

SolutionBoone needed to find a more cost-effective way to update and maintain the Capstone Real Estate Services email solution. Following an introduction to Microsoft Gold Certified Partner Team Venti, he learned about Microsoft Exchange Online, a Microsoft-hosted enterprise messaging service based on Exchange Server 2007. It is offered through Microsoft Online Services. Exchange Online offers a comprehensive messaging solution for a simple, per-user monthly fee and removes Capstone’s obligations to deploy, configure, and monitor on-premises technology. Additional hosted services for email archiving are available

Customer: Capstone Real Estate ServicesWebsite: www.capstonemanagement.comCustomer Size: 1,100Country or Region: United StatesIndustry: Professional services—Real estatePartner: Team Venti

Customer ProfileBased in Austin, Texas, Capstone Real Estate Services is a full-service, third-party real estate management firm with a portfolio of 40,000 multifamily units across seven states. It employs 1,100 people.

Software and Services Microsoft Online Services− Microsoft Business Productivity

Online Standard Suite− Microsoft Exchange Online

For more information about other Microsoft customer successes, please visit: www.microsoft.com/casestudies

Microsoft Online ServicesCustomer Solution Case Study

Real Estate Company Saves 70 Percent on Monthly Email Costs with Hosted Solution

through Microsoft Forefront Online Protection for Exchange, including Microsoft Exchange Hosted Archive.

However, before making a decision to subscribe to a Microsoft hosted email solution, Boone evaluated Google Apps. “Google Apps is not industry-standard from a business point of view,” says Boone. “We chose Microsoft hosted email instead of Google Apps because it had all the familiar features we needed, it offered a painless upgrade, and it required zero training. There’s even support for our BlackBerry users.”

Boone and the IT staff worked with Team Venti to create a small proof of concept in Austin, Texas, and to familiarize themselves with the Microsoft migration tools that would help move Capstone employees’ mailbox data into the Exchange Online environment. In May 2010, Capstone subscribed to 585 seats of Microsoft Exchange Online and 65 seats of Exchange Hosted Archive. Following a series of emails to notify staffs of their new logon credentials, Capstone began migrating mailboxes at night and on the weekend. The whole process took less than two weeks.

“The migration tools were so intuitive that we quickly learned how to use them and migrated 400 users in one weekend,” reports Boone. “It was a successful transition to a much better email service. Today, we use the Administration Console to configure mailboxes, user settings, and distribution lists.”

BenefitsDespite current economic challenges and a struggling real estate industry, Capstone Real Estate Services is growing its client portfolio. One reason for the company’s optimistic outlook is its new approach to acquiring and managing information technology. By choosing a hosted email solution from Microsoft, Capstone avoided a large, up-front technology investment and gained an improved messaging solution with more functionality at a minimal monthly cost.

“Instead of paying $18,000 for upgrading our on-premises email solution and a further $5,700 in monthly maintenance, with Microsoft Exchange Online, we are only

paying a fraction of this per month,” says Boone. “We have an all-in-one email, archiving, and virus-filtering solution at a 70 percent monthly savings.”

Boone is relieved that Capstone has an archiving solution that could save a lot of time and money in the unlikely event of a legal issue. “I have tested the indexed storage and rapid search and retrieval—and it’s working great,” he reports.

Remote employees are using the improved calendaring and search functionality in Office Outlook Web Access to work more productively. “With a better user experience, we’ve offered Outlook Web Access to more of our administrative staff at headquarters, saving an additional $3.00 a month per user,” says Boone. “And because a Microsoft-hosted email solution offers support for the BlackBerry Enterprise Server, our BlackBerry users can access contacts and calendaring functionality as well as email.”

Now Capstone can allocate more than $65,000 towards more strategic IT projects, including a Microsoft SQL Server 2008–based database consolidation project and a new Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007–based intranet to promote business collaboration among employees working at different Capstone-managed properties.

“Allocating our scarce IT resources to projects that we couldn’t focus on before is a great benefit to Capstone and boosts morale,” says Boone.

This case study is for informational purposes only. MICROSOFT MAKES NO WARRANTIES, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, IN THIS SUMMARY.

Document published November 2010