ARCH Venture Partners Gets Mission Critical Performance with Mi8

Mi8 Corporationices in Seattle, Chicago, Austin, New York, and Albuquerque, ARCH Venture Partners, a 14-year old venture capital firm, invests in the development of seed and early stage technology companies in information technology, life, and physical sciences. In 1999 it was ranked the number one firm in the Washington State area with regards to investing in local start-ups.

Due to its almost "virtual" feel in terms of office location, ARCH associates rely heavily on e-mail and groupware functions to communicate with each other and with clients. The firm needed a secure and reliable communications system but didn't want to hire additional IT personnel to support a groupware server. According to Patrick Ennis, Principal for ARCH, "We looked into a dedicated server solution, but after adding up the costs, including hiring personnel to maintain it, we decided to outsource this function. No small firm should bother with hosting and administering an Exchange server. It just takes up too much of a company's resources that can be put to better use."

After researching three application service providers (ASP), ARCH decided to go with <%=company%>, a company that provides an outsourced Exchange service delivered over the Internet, an approach the company calls "Netsourcing." Mi8 was chosen in part because they were able to set up ARCH's accounts immediately.

Mobility, Reliability for Mission Critical System
Through Mi8's Exchange service, ARCH associates have access to other team members' schedules and calendars, contacts, and task lists, enabling them to easily schedule meetings and share contact information. But it is the e-mail capabilities that are "mission critical" for the firm. "We literally send and receive e-mail 24/7," says Ennis. "We can't afford to be down." Due to Mi8's guaranteed service levels, however, "down time" is a thing of the past.

Additionally, ARCH associates can take advantage of the Blackberry wireless service which Mi8 offers as an optional enhancement to Outlook/Exchange. The device allows mobile employees to send and receive e-mail anywhere, anytime, through a device the size of a pager.

Because Mi8 has integrated the Blackberry service with Microsoft's Exchange capabilities, ARCH associates get more than just email: they receive meeting requests and reminders, task reminders, and other messages generated by Exchange's groupware functions.

Mi8 Customer Support Available Day AND Night
By offloading the maintenance of an Exchange server to Mi8, ARCH associates are free to concentrate on their business without worrying about backups or computer viruses, as Mi8 provides virus scanning, nightly backups, and toll free access to a 24/7 help desk—a level of service usually seen at only Fortune 1000 companies.

"Mi8's performance has been excellent" says Ennis. "One of the great things about an entrepreneurial company like Mi8 is that I can talk directly to people who have deep technical skills. At a larger organization, a customer rep has to abide by a rigid process whereby someone like myself would first have to spend a lot of time talking to him or her before getting through to someone who could fix my problem. At Mi8, I get through day AND night, and get the issue resolved—fast. Mi8 allows us to do what we do best— grow companies."