Apptix Launches New Version of Hosted SharePoint Services for Small and Medium-Sized Businesses

Business Wire, Jan 16, 2007

Apptix Adds More Than 100 New Hosted SharePoint Customers in the First Month of Availability Through SharePointSite.com

HERNDON, Va. -- Apptix, a premiere provider of on-demand messaging and collaboration solutions for Small and Medium-sized Businesses (SMBs), today announced the launch of its Hosted SharePoint services, based on Microsoft Corporation's recently released Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 technology. In the first month of its availability, Apptix has already added more than 100 new Hosted SharePoint customers through its Web property, SharePointSite.com.

Apptix has been a leading hosting provider of SharePoint technologies since 2003. During this time, Apptix has worked closely with Microsoft and continues to provide hosting services to Microsoft to support its Windows SharePoint Services 2.0 Trial Program. Apptix offers flexible pricing plans and supports its customers' needs for high-storage and customization requirements.

"Small business owners are constantly overcoming challenges. They want to optimize their business operations and IT infrastructure for long term growth, while tending to the day-to-day needs of their employees at the same time," said Kurt DelBene, corporate vice president, Office Business Platform Group at Microsoft. "Apptix's hosted solution provides customers with tools to meet their collaboration needs; because it's based on Windows SharePoint Services, small businesses can be assured that their IT infrastructure will grow as they do."

Microsoft Windows SharePoint Services technologies have become increasingly important to SMBs as they look to develop collaboration capabilities both within their organizations and amongst partners and customers alike. With Apptix's Hosted SharePoint service, SMBs have the ability to create intranets, extranets, project workspaces and document repositories. Using application templates, they can also support the custom requirements and business processes of their team, department and/or organization.

"With Windows SharePoint Services 3.0, Microsoft is empowering hosting providers, such as Apptix, to quickly and easily roll out new, highly scalable services," said John Zanni, director of Worldwide Hosting at Microsoft Corp. "Apptix is expanding its portfolio of collaboration services for SMBs by enabling them to enhance productivity with services such as document sharing through by-directional synchronization and integration with Microsoft Office Outlook 2007 and other Microsoft Office applications."

Microsoft Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 provides numerous features that can help an organization increase the efficiency of its business processes and improve team productivity, including the ability to:

* Create, Capture and Share Community Knowledge - Includes the ability to broadcast information with blogs, capture knowledge with wikis and create surveys, discussions and links.

* Connect with Individuals Inside and Outside the Organization - Provides presence awareness, integration with Microsoft Office 2007 and more.

* Keep Teams In Sync - Provides mobile-friendly access to Hosted SharePoint sites and the ability to integrate the new RSS feed generator with Microsoft Outlook or any other RSS-enabled application, which allows users to receive live information and alerts about updates to their SharePoint site.

* Help Protect Critical Information Resources - Enhances security and increases control of an organization's data and information resources through folder and item level access control, improved policy, audit and compliance features, and enhanced version control.

With SharePointSite.com's hosted solution, all of these robust features can be obtained without the extensive costs associated with hosting Windows SharePoint Services in-house such as hardware costs, licensing and staff to manage the service. Furthermore, Apptix's Windows SharePoint Services infrastructure is a fully clustered environment to deliver maximum uptime for its customers.

Apptix supports all released Microsoft application templates and plans to offer additional add-ons for Windows SharePoint Services 3.0. The application templates are out-of-box custom scenarios for the Windows SharePoint Services platform, tailored to address the needs and requirements of specific business processes or sets of tasks. Microsoft expects to make these new application templates, such as "Sales Lead Pipeline", "Inventory Tracking", "Budgeting and Tracking Multiple Projects" available in Q1 2007.

"With the launch of our Hosted SharePoint Services through SharePointSite.com, Apptix is proud to offer our customers access to the latest and most robust solutions available," said Samir Gulati, vice president of marketing and business development for Apptix. "Version 3.0 of Windows SharePoint Services offers dramatic improvements in the user experience over previous releases. These improvements, and the affordable, reliable hosting infrastructure delivered by SharePointSite.com continue to make Apptix the preferred choice for SMB companies seeking an enterprise-class collaboration solution."