Overview:
Founded in 1998, SherWeb is a Canadian Web and Exchange hosting company. A Microsoft Gold Partner, they assure their users that they offer the highest-quality service in the industry and cater to users in over 80 countries around the world.
Pros: Plans at SherWeb are surprisingly great – not only do you get a 30-day money-back guarantee, free set-up, free Outlook 2007 or Entourage, and free anti-virus and anti-spam, but you also get 3 GB per mailbox and free Pocket PC and Treo synchronization. SherWeb also offers free SharePoint with its plans and has a Tier-4 datacenter – that’s as good as it gets for Microsoft Exchange. The website touts their plan as the best offer in the industry – they’re right. They also offer Microsoft's Archiving Solution and Global Relays archiving solution.
Cons: Set-up fees are charged for BlackBerry Exchange, but that's about normal through the industry.
Detailed Provider Information:
Version of BES: (Microsoft Exchange, IBM Lotus Domino, Novell Group Wise) SherWeb uses Microsoft Exchange 2007.
Plans and Pricing: SherWeb offers one plan, because they say that one plan that has everything is better for their users than a bunch of different plans that may or may not include certain features that the user wants. Their plan has a 3 GB mailbox and many different features, including free SharePoint, free anti-virus and anti-spam, and free Outlook 2007. Their plan costs $8.95 a month with no set-up fees, which is pretty much the best in the industry at the time of this review.
If you want BlackBerry wireless synchronization, it will cost you $9.95 a month, which is on par with other companies. However, there is a set-up fee of $29.95, which is about $10 less than any other company. Synchronization for Pocket PC and Treo devices is free.
Firewall Protection: If you have a plan with SherWeb, you are automatically protected because they have a firewall and security solution. They segregate other customer’s data away from yours to prevent accidental or inappropriate data access.
Anti-Spam and Virus Protection: Advanced anti-virus and anti-spam protection is offered to all users for no extra cost.
Set-up Fee: There are no set-up fees for SherWeb’s plan, but you will have to pay $29.95 if you want to get mobile sync service for your BlackBerry. However, the set-up fee is approximately $10 less than any other company’s set-up fee for the same service.
Other Devices Supported: SherWeb supports BlackBerry, Treo and Pocket PC devices.
Customer Service: SherWeb gives its users 24/7 tech support through live chat, email, or toll-free telephone. They say that the average waiting time on the phone is 3 minutes. SherWeb also has a comment system so that they can keep up with their customers’ suggestions to improve their service.
Backup History Storage: SherWeb performs daily backups onto tape and weekly system backups.
Uptime Guarantee: 99.9% for both infrastructure and applications, according to the company’s SLA.
Additional Services: SherWeb offers Web hosting services, dedicated servers, and SharePoint hosting plans for differently-sized companies.
Fee to Change BlackBerry for Current Customers: There is no charge for this service.
They host our 5 BBs and I must say I'm pretty satisfied with the service.
I'm with SherWeb since now 2 months and it's working like a charme! I'm so happy to have find the best offer of the industry.
I wanted my Blackberry to sync with my outllook at work. I knew nothing about how to set it up but it was so easy with the help of the guys at SherWeb. Great price, great support and an overall very good experience so far.
Thanks and keep up the good work!
Their pricing seemed too good to be true, and their service has been too good to be true --- but it IS true! They are fantastic. I use the exchange hosting and the blackberry services, and the sharepoint. Next I'm going to add web services! I hope it is as good as the mail.
I'm only 2 days into using the hosted exchange server, but so far Alex and the team at SherWeb have been wonderful to work with. The transition was easy.
Nothing but problems lately. constant problems with the mail queues, 2 days ago another problem with some of the mailstores, and they are in Canada, and speak French. Im in the USA, and would like to keep my data in the USA.
They also only have emergency support.
In response to Tyler, I work for the company, so I am biased, so I will only offer the facts. But to be clear, we speak English and French. Two many users prefer to store their data in a country like Canada, as we don't have the Patriot Act. It's safe, intact, and no government official is allowed to look at your private information. Lastly, we offer telephone support 8am - 8pm EST M - F and 12 - 5pm EST on Saturdays. After that, we have ticket support and staff that monitor the server 24/7. All for $8.95 per mailbox per month. Thanks for letting me clear this up.
Horrible service and uptime.
I switched to Sherweb from another provider thinking the additional storage offered would be a great benefit.
As usual you get what you pay for, and the grass isn;t always greener.
For the past several days, we have had nothing but problems with delayed messages and email delivery problems. This has happened way more times that I would like.
See below for the details on their system status page as of this writing.
Needless to say we are switching to another provider.
SherWeb Network Status (Last update:2008-05-08)
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RSS Feed
2008-05-06 / Exchange 2007
RESOLVED: 8:30 PM (EDT) Please visit this section tomorrow for a thorough explanation of this incident.
UPDATE (6:20 PM EDT): The Spam Definition problem has been resolved at Barracuda Networks and the SPAM filter queues are going down. The site will be updated when the queues are down to normal.
UPDATE (2:45PM EDT): The problem related to the delay of emails is a result of a problem with the Barracuda SPAM Definitions servers. Because the SPAM Definitions servers are not working properly this is slowing the SPAM filtering process. From what we are told, this problem will be resolved within 1 hour on the Barracuda Networks side. Queues will unload and normal email flow with resume.
PROBLEM(10AM EDT): Some customers may experience a delay in email delivery. . This problem should be resolved very soon.
2008-05-02 / Control Panel (Exchange 2007)
UPDATE: CP is back online 100%.
The control panel http://admin.ihostexchange.net/ is updating at the moment and will be back online shortly.
2008-05-01 / Exchange 2007
RESOLVED: (7PM EDT)
PROBLEM(4PM EDT): Some customers may experience a delay in email delivery. The delay varies between 15 minutes and 45 minutes. There is a problem on one of the HUB servers which is slowing down the delivery process to the mailboxes. This problem should be resolved very soon.
Another week, another problem. For the third time in three weeks, there is a delay in receiving email. This can be verified by looking at their status page. I can't count the number of times this has happened in the few months I've been with their service. They will no doubt report back later today that this was a problem with Barracuda and not their service, but I fail to see any difference.
All I read before switching were positive reviews but it's obvious now those were from people like "Daniel" above who work for the company. ALL I WANT IS A SERVICE THAT DELIVERS 100% OF MY MAIL WITHIN OF FIVE MINUTES OF BEING SENT! If anyone finds a service that can offer that, please respond.
Mike, tuffmail.com is GREAT. I actually am just leaving them to try SherWeb, but SherWeb i already notice has TERRIBLE SUPPORT. It seems impossible to call them, the hold times are either very long or it says "all lines at SherWeb are busy!". They have not once yet EVER responded to a support email from me. I've been a customer for 3 days and very frustrated.
Tuffmail.com was great, but they didn't offer Exchange hosting, but we had blackberries setup with IMAP, it was very very reliable and very cheap, like $15 or so a YEAR.
With SherWeb, they also speak French (and english) but be prepared to listen to every friggin phone announcement in french then english, makes going very slow and annoying.