Knowing full well that the telecommunications industry has been spreading like the plague (but in a good way), Microsoft has accepted the challenge of trying to infiltrate yet another market share with their latest release of its Solution for Hosted Messaging and Collaboration.

This service is geared toward the small-midsized businesses who don't want to heavily invest in infrastructure, but still want to get enterprise-class e-mail service, mobile device data access and other features.

Pascal Martin, General Manager of Worldwide Hosting at Microsoft stated that "more and more small and midsize businesses require advanced enterprise-class features once reserved only for corporations with extensive IT budgets. The latest release of Hosted Messaging and Collaboration addresses that issue with unprecedented new features for these organizations." He also said that "hosting providers are clamoring for ways to meet the demands of their customers while keeping a tight rein on costs. By providing a consistent platform, we give our hosting partners the tools to upgrade to the latest software and thereby differentiate their offerings with minimal effort and cost."

Morgan Cole, Senior Product Manager at Microsoft added that they "see significant numbers of small businesses wanting to mobile-enable their workers who work outside the office…Now you can have always-up-to-date direct-push device syncing."

Some of Version 3.5's new features consist of calendar appointments, task notifications and Direct Push Technology (provides a connection between mobile devices and an Exchange server which in effect allow the users to receive up-to-the-minute access to e-mail).