Local Microsoft Exchange, Hosted Exchange and Google Apps have become the three competitive options for any SMB and many individuals. For the non-profit or School the options are narrowed even further to Hosted Exchange through Microsoft Office365 and Google Apps (because they offer free educational and non- profit plans).
Other good personal email options if you don’t want to use your own domain name include Hotmail, Gmail, and iCloud.
- Hotmail is the only personal email system that now offers most of the same desktop and mobile accessibility options as Exchange such as, syncing email, calendar, contacts and tasks.
- Gmail is the same as Google Apps except that your email ends with @gmail.com.
- iCloud is a good option if you are only planning on using Apple devices.
Email Technical Support
We are extremely proficient at solving the many issues that come up with our email clients. We can help the client whose email is not working or if you are having difficulty moving email to your new computer without loosing those little details, like autocomplete, email addresses, and email signatures. We can also quickly move you to a better email solution while keeping your old email address valid and solve the many annoying issues related to POP3 and IMAP accounts in the process.
Call to discuss your particular email questions or concerns today, 951-440-7600
Exchange Server Setup and Support
If you are looking into business class email, using a local Microsoft Exchange server, we would love to assist you. When we consult on Microsoft Exchange it is very important to consider if it is necessary to use a local Exchange server or if you would be better served using hosted Exchange or Google Apps.
If you are already using a local Exchange Server we offer ongoing email tech support services as well as migration services if you are coming up on your next refresh cycle.
The primary factors when choosing between a hosted and local exchange server setup are:
- Cost per mailbox- an average estimate to setup and configure a Local Exchange server for a small to medium business is about $5,000 to $10,000 with ongoing maintenance of about $150-$500 per month. The following numbers assume a hardware refresh rate of 5 years:
- Hosted Exchange vs. Local Exchange becomes a wash at about 50 mailboxes
- Google Apps vs. Local Exchange are a wash at about 80 mailboxes.
- Schools and non-profits can use both Google Apps and Office365 Hosted Exchange for free.
- Security- If you require a very high level of security it can be locked down better (particularly from government access) if it is stored on a local server. However, email is fundamentally not secure because you have little control over the actions or servers of the recipients. If you want to communicate in a truly secure way use a service like Wickr https://www.mywickr.com not an email client.
- Uptime- Local Exchange Servers will inevitably have much higher odds of going down from time to time because they rely on the health of the one server they run on, the power of the local building they reside in, and the Internet connection and network equipment. Hosted Exchange with Office365 and Google Apps have incredibly high levels of redundancy so that they very rarely go down.
- Backups and recovery – Many local offices that utilize local Exchange servers think they are really well backed until something goes wrong and they realize it will be several days or weeks before those backups can be fully up and running. In most cases Hosted Exchange and Google Apps will switch over to another server or server farm when something goes wrong and you will never know anything went down.
Call us to get support on the setup and maintenance of your email system today: 951-440-7600
Should I use a domain name that I own?
Any time you represent a business or organization with email it is important to consider if each of your emails are going to point people back to your business or are they pointing people to Yahoo, Verizon or some other business.
It is best to avoid using your Internet providers “free email” because if you change Internet providers you will be forced to change your email addresses. It is easy to move to a new email address if you still have the ability to forward messages on from the old email to the new. It is very disruptive to try to change after your old account is disabled.
Should I retain access to my employee’s email messages even after they leave?
Yes, it is an employers right to have access and control over a company email system. It is frequently a very damaging problem when a past employee steals customers or damages your reputation because you allowed them to use a private email for business purposes.
Can I work from any location and use multiple devices with my POP3 mail account?
Not very well with POP3 on Outlook or Outlook Express type mail clients. Once you add a phone or multiple devices you will quickly find that it breaks down with multiple bad options that ether give you a mess of duplicate unsorted mail across your devices or they risk permanently loosing all of your mail.
IMAP is slightly better (syncing a matched copy of mail to each device) but it is slow and tends to break a lot with large mailboxes. It also only supports mail (not calendar or contacts).
Exchange, Google Apps and Hotmail are always up to date on all your devices no matter where you are
What are the benefits of your preferred email systems?
The biggest time saving feature is that you can organize your email calendar and contacts from any one device and the rest will automatically match. If your phone falls in the lake, for example, your business critical information is synced back up in minutes after you get a new phone.
Local Exchange when it is configured correctly can be accessed from anywhere and supports many mobile devices as well as giving you the industry standard contact calendar and tasks with the ability to share everything within a company.
Hosted Exchange is the same except that it is more cost effective per mailbox to administrate server farms with tens of thousands of mailboxes spread over many companies than it is for each company to purchase and upkeep individual exchange servers. Once you cross the line of about 50 employees and you employ a full time IT staff you might start considering a local Exchange Server.
Google Apps has successfully created a product that offers similar organization and overall feature set as Exchange. As far as stability goes Google Apps requires the least administration and has the least problems with downtime. Google Apps also has the largest number of pre-established integrations with outside systems like Solve360 CRM and FreshBooks.
The downside of Google Apps compared to Exchange is that they offer less native email client support and the online interface is on average a bit confusing and counter intuitive for many people.
Hotmail, Gmail and iCloud, while they don’t let you use your own domain name (@yourname.com) they do offer most of the same benefits syncing your data.
