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Intermedia and Ingram Micro Seismic are marching forward with their plans to offer Hosted Exchange 2010 to managed service providers. The move comes as many VARs and MSPs continue to sort out their SaaS (software as a service) strategies for Microsoft applications.

Intermedia, based in New York, is one of the largest Hosted Exchange providers. The company spent much of 2010 beta testing Exchange 2010 and also has a white label program that allows resellers to rebrand Hosted Exchange 2010 as their own.

Ingram Micro Seismic, meanwhile, is a well-known Master MSP that helps VARs transition to managed services and recurring revenue. Instead of betting its strategy on a single tool or business relationship, Ingram is working with a range of MSP- and SaaS-centric software companies.

The Intermedia-Ingram Micro Seismic relationship, announced in October 2009, arrived at a key time for many VARs and MSPs. In recent months, Microsoft has been promoting BPOS (Business Productivity Online Suite (BPOS) to its channel. BPOS includes a range of SaaS options such as Exchange Online and SharePoint Online. While some solutions providers think BPOS provides new recurring revenue opportunities, other channel partners worry about BPOS because of Microsoft’s price war with Google Apps and because VARs can’t rebrand BPOS offerings as their own.

With all of those variables in mind, companies like Intermedia are striving to provide a safe haven to solutions providers that want to re-brand SaaS applications as their own.

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