AppRiver, a leading provider of email messaging and Web security solutions, today announced a strategic relationship with Microsoft Corp. to offer its customers additional cloud-based services. As a Microsoft Gold Certified Partner, AppRiver is among the first resellers to bring the new Microsoft Office 365 Suite to market.

A pioneer of cloud-based services, AppRiver now protects more than 45,000 corporate customers and 6 million mailboxes worldwide qualifying it as one of the leading providers of hosted Exchange in North America. It is that record of success, along with AppRiver's over-the-top commitment to customer care, which makes the company a natural partner for Office 365 at launch.

"Office 365 is the next generation cloud productivity service from Microsoft. It brings together the best productivity solutions on the market priced per user per month," says Marco Limena, VP, Business Services, Operator Channels at Microsoft. "AppRiver's track record over the past nine years and its depth of experience in providing cloud-based services suggest that the company is well-positioned to offer Office 365. We are excited to have them join Microsoft in this new service offering."

The addition of Office 365 to its suite of hosted services will allow AppRiver to better serve the needs of its business clients, according to company CEO Michael Murdoch.

"AppRiver understands that businesses today want flexibility, they need options and they demand value for their money," Murdoch said. "That's why we are pleased to offer our customers a blended solution of Microsoft's bundled Office 365 offerings, along with our own unique, feature-enriched solutions. By working with Microsoft, we are offering customers more choices, enhanced functionality and greater overall value."

The AppRiver Office 365 bundled solutions offer a comprehensive set of features with a variety of service options to help businesses increase productivity, while saving time and money. Key benefits include:

Virtually anywhere access to email, documents, contacts and calendars with familiar productivity experience on PCs, phones and in browsers No hardware or software installation Business-class features, such as financially backed 99.9-percent uptime, geo-redundancy, disaster recovery, and robust security and privacy controls and standards Comprehensive solutions, such as desktop productivity applications, portals, extranets, external websites, instant messaging (IM), voice conferencing, videoconferencing, web conferencing, e-mail and voicemail Pay-as-you-go pricing options, which provide predictability and flexibility for all or part of an organization

One of the most significant features of AppRiver's Office 365 offering is Phenomenal Care™ - 24/7 US-based live customer support that is available to all subscribers. The Phenomenal Care program - from sales to onboarding to troubleshooting - receives consistently positive reviews, helping it recently earn the distinguished International Service Excellence Award from the Customer Service Institute of America.

"AppRiver has developed a strong competitive edge by focusing on outstanding support that is free and available 24 hours a day, every day," said Lisa Carter, president of SpartanTec. "That is especially important for the small and medium-sized businesses for which IT is not a core competency."

Office 365 will be available to AppRiver customers in July 2011. Companies wishing to deploy the service should contact AppRiver at sales@appriver.com. Pricing is affected by a client's configuration, but in its simplest form is per user, per month.