There was a time we thought doing everything in-house and being self sufficient was the only way to go. Unfortunately, technology continues to evolve and get more complex so it doesn’t always make sense to try to do everything yourself. Now this depends on the size of your company and your IT resources, but if you are a small business, hosted e-mail should be something you are looking at from a cost-savings standpoint.

Years ago we would check our e-mail once or twice a day and it was only thought of as a novelty. If someone needed an answer right away they would pick up the phone and call. But times have changed and e-mail has become something we count on having continual access to both in-the-office and on-the-road. It has become an instantaneous communication method and people expect instant responses when using it. We stay connected via mobile phones, tablets, home computers, and work computers. We need access from web browsers in coffee shops and, yes, Microsoft Outlook in the office. Furthermore, over time we have integrated much more into our e-mail solutions, making us increasingly more dependent on it. If it was as simple as just needing to check e-mail, then an inexpensive POP-3/IMAP e-mail solution would be sufficient; but now we have our contacts (e-mail address, phone #’s, work addresses, etc) and calendars integrated into our e-mail solutions and available on our phones in real time. Clearly e-mail has evolved from a novelty to a mission-critical resource; we need it to be reliable, flexible, and, of course, cost-effective.

From an investment standpoint, e-mail is not as simple as just needing a server to run Microsoft Exchange. As an organization, you now need to worry about spam filtering, virus outbreaks, firewalling, and backing up the server, in case you have hardware failure or, worse yet, some kind of disaster like fire or flooding. The cost of all these items adds up and it is not just a one-time initial investment. You need to pay for monthly power, monthly/yearly virus software subscriptions, and monthly/yearly spam filter subscriptions, not to mention the yearly software maintenance. Clearly the argument that it is paid for does not work anymore. If you’re running an older Exchange 2003 server, its days are numbered from a software support stand point. Many Exchange 2003 servers are running on Windows 2000 which is no longer supported by Microsoft (last day of support including security patches was 7/13/2010). Please refer to Microsoft’s website if you’re curious about your product: http://support.microsoft.com/gp/lifeSelectServ.

Because of all these costs and requirements to maintain a secure, stable e-mail server, many businesses are turning to Hosted E-mail to make business operations easier. With Hosted E-mail, the physical server is replaced by the cloud. This reduces risk, power usage, management costs, and IT planning for server upgrades. Some features of Hosted E-mail include:

  • Large Mailbox Storage (50 GB is typical)
  • Shared Calendars and Contacts
  • Spam Filters built-in
  • Virus software built-in
  • Secure connections using SSL
  • MAPI, IMAP and POP3 support
  • ActiveSync support for phones
  • Calendar entries synced over-the-air and updated on all devices instantly
  • Contacts synced over-the-air and available everywhere you are instantly
  • E-mail synced on various platforms including mobile devices, PC’s, and web browsers without having to tether for manual syncing
  • Ad Free E-mail Clients
  • 24×7 Customer Support

Do you plan on replacing and maintaining your own e-mail server? It makes about as much sense as maintaining your own electrical power generation facilities; you can do it, but why would you? Are you looking to upgrade to a newer version of Microsoft Exchange, but holding off due to cost? Contact us today to discuss our hosted solution at [email protected] or (800) 557-0663.  We will customize a quote based on your requirements and may surprise you on how cost-effective hosted e-mail can be.