The Difference

The difference is it's Microsoft and Microsoft partners.

Picture Microsoft and small company, call it QQOpenGarageCalMail (my apologies if that is a real company).

Lets' say QQOpenGarageCalMail has a 99.9% uptime and Microsoft has 99.5%.

Company G uses QQOpenGarageCalMail and company M uses Microsoft.

OK, something bad happens due to that downtime.

President of Company: "Staff person, explain this!"

Company G staff person: "I chose QQOpenGarageCalMail and they screwed up, what are you going to do?"

Company M staff person: "I chose Microsoft and they screwed up, what are you going to do?"

The M staffer has a higher probability of continued employment.

Add to this that Microsoft may very well do a better better job than QQOpenGarageCalMail (they have been in the hosted mail business quite

awhile now after all).

Also remember you need to explain these problems to customers.

Angel Bill because sometimes Microsoft does some good work.