Intermedia has long been our Exchange host of choice — while there are many other places to get Exchange hosting from, it’s really what they specialize in, and they seem to know what they’re doing more than others. It’s for the most part very solid, with decent and accssible support, and useful plan add-ons (e.g. BlackBerry wireless sync support). They’re basically predictable, which is what you want in a host.

They’ve never been cheap, though, with their basic plan at $8/month/mailbox and a minimum of three mailboxes; and we recommend their $11/month plan in most cases because of its controllable spam filtering and 24×7 phone support.

Microsoft has gone into direct competition with them, though, with their Office 365 for business plans, which include Exchange hosting. Plans start at only $4/month/mailbox, with no minimum, and 24×7 phone support.

Intermedia has noticed, so now when you go to their pricing page, their $15/month/mailbox Enterprise plan has a big banner that says “Compare to Office 365: Office 365’s Enterprise E3 plan is $20 per user, per month.” Well, I did, and guess what: They’re right. What they don’t tell you is that it’s an apples to oranges comparison: Microsoft’s Enterprise E3 plan includes a full copy of the Office suite for every user, unlike Intermedia’s offerings. If you get a Microsoft plan that doesn’t include Office, it’s…$4/mailbox/month.

I call BS on Intermedia.