Saudi telecommunications operator Etihad Etisalat (Mobily) has launched its managed hosted messaging and collaboration services, a Microsoft-powered hosted environment that provides messaging, communication and collaboration solutions for businesses.

Through this highly secure and redundant hosted environment, Mobily will be offering services such as Windows SharePoint, messaging solutions, hosted exchange, office communication server,web data hosting services, DNS, web site builder and many others.

Mobily also provides up-to-the-minute antispam and antivirus protection to ensure uninterrupted business operation. The above services are bundled in carefully tailored and designed packages that suits different business needs and ensures to minimize the Total Cost of Ownership of such solution.

“Working with Microsoft guarantees the unrivaled value of the business services that we offer, and which will streamline work and save tremendous costs for businesses, the service should be viewed as an another integrative suite from Mobily, where Mobily’s advantage of binging a one-stop-shop for all of the Telecom needs,” said Abdulaziz Altamami, Mobily’s chief operations officer.

He pointed out that Mobily’s infrastructure was more than capable of hosting and running data and network servers in a safe and stable environment, on top of its incumbent broadband and corporate VPN services.

“We now offer advanced services to businesses, saving them the cost and inconvenience of having to come up with extra office space to set up their own hardware,” said Altamami.

He said the primary benefit businesses can reap out of Mobily’s services 'is cost-cutting.'

“Instead of bearing out the huge initial outlay for their own hardware, with all of the logistic nightmares and having to hire people to run it – not to mention keeping it running, now we offer a one-stop shop for every quality services, but without having to worry about equipment, hardware, wiring, or manpower, with  minimal, if not negligible, total cost of ownership,” he noted.

Bayanat Al-Oula, Mobily’s data division, had launched its Data Center in August 2009. The center hosts data and network servers and broadband and VPN services for businesses at a facility in northern Riyadh.-TradeArabia News Service