Get rid of your e-mail blues

Get rid of your e-mail blues

email blues

Managing e-mail has become a nightmare for many businesses. Bloated inboxes, never-ending backups and unfindable e-mails waste team members' time and patience. Luckily, there are several proven alternatives to running your own e-mail server.

The easiest option is to pay someone else to do it for you. Web hosting companies can take your e-mail accounts from your server to their data centres for a very reasonable fee. They screen out all viruses and other malware from their e-mail servers on your behalf which means higher levels of protection than the typical small business could afford. They also filter out spam and junk e-mails in the data centre and only pass on relevant e-mails. More than 90% of e-mails are spam, and letting all that unwanted correspondence hit your e-mail server can clog up your internet connection.

Most hosted e-mail providers will automatically back up your e-mail accounts, saving you another unpleasant task. These data centers are highly secure with redundant measures in place in case of fire, flood or other natural disasters. Some services will back up hosted e-mails to another data centre for an added measure of protection.

MICROSOFT V GOOGLE

While hosted providers can take away the pain of managing e-mail, they tend to be expensive compared to newer options from the IT vendors themselves. Two heavyweights fighting for business e-mail accounts are Microsoft and Google.

Microsoft Exchange Online provides ample storage for a low cost. It fits nicely with other Microsoft software including document sharing and productivity (SharePoint Online), instant messaging (Office Communications Online) and web conferencing (Live Meeting). It can also sync e-mails in Exchange Online to your Blackberry (usually for an extra fee).

Google’s Google Apps platform is a different proposition. It offers a greater number of applications under one fee (though many are more basic than those offered by Microsoft). The standard Gmail (e-mail) account is free and comes with approximately 7.5 gigabytes of storage. A premium account with 25 gigabytes costs US$50 per user a year. Each user receives e-mail, video conferencing, calendar, intranets and instant messaging.

Both Microsoft and Google filter viruses and spam and back up e-mails as part of their e-mail services. They will happily help you transfer accounts from your e-mail server to Google or Microsoft’s service, and the only thing you need worry about is clearing your inbox.

For more information contact your RAN ONE business professionals at
Academy of Business Excellence Limited