Third-party hosting

Would anyone with experience in third-party web hosting within a large metropolitan school district care to share their experiences/insights?

My school system is currently exploring options for moving all its web services (from the administrative level all the way down to the classroom level) to third-party hosting. Two services in particular, schoolfusion.com and schoolwise.com, are being explored.

Currently, district policy mandates that all teacher- and student-produced content be hosted on a school-based server. I am definitely interested in a more open and fluid approach that will increase teacher and student participation on the Web, but I don't know a lot about the alternatives.

I am eager to learn more about third-party hosting, and invite the CR 2.0 community to share what they know!