If you want to make sure your business has reliable access to email that lets you share contacts and doesn’t leave your inbox full of spam, you can’t get by on a free email service like Yahoo or Gmail. They’re great for what they do, but they’re just not as robust as paid versions. And even the mighty Gmail experiences the occasional outage, which is tolerable for personal correspondence but deadly for a business.

In the world of small business email, you have two basic options: a hosted solution or an in-house, server-based version.

Hosted: A hosted email solution means that you pay some third party to take care of an email server and provision storage off-site. In other words, you don’t have to have any equipment in your office, and you don’t have to hire anybody to be your email guru. Instead you treat it like a utility – you pay some set amount every month, usually per email box or unit of data storage.

In-house: An in-house solution means that you do pay for an email server onsite, and you do need to have somebody maintaining that server, creating new accounts and so on. It’s a higher cost up front because you’ve got to pay for the server (and the email client if you’re going with Microsoft Exchange), then you’ve got to install it, and then you have to maintain it once it’s installed. On the other hand, this arrangement can offer a bigger security upside, and you don’t have to worry about your host having an outage. (You just have to worry about your own server conking out.)

What option is best for you will depend on a few things. How many users do you have? How often are they on the road, and do they need to access email remotely? What does your cash flow situation look like? How concerned are you about the privacy of your business data?

We’re holding a Webinar next week to talk about what questions you should ask when you’re selecting an email option for your business. Our goal isn’t to push you in one direction or the other – it’s to help you refine your own criteria so that you can decide what’s best for you. We’d love to have you involved in what’s sure to be a lively and informative discussion! To register Go Here. Our Webinar on small business email will be held Thursday, May 27th at noon Central time.

Past Articles
Share Professional Advice and Ideas on LinkedIn Read
Fend Off a Facebook Hack Attack Read
The Right (and Wrong) Way to Use Twitter to Market Your Business Read

Rich Kazimir
(908) 237-2211
rkazimir@cmitsolutions.com
cmitsolutions.com/huntsomernj
Listen to Rich's radio show Technology Today every Tuesday night at 6:30pm on WDVR FM 89.7/91.9 or on the web at wdvrfm.org

CMIT Solutions is your full-service technology partner offering comprehensive services for small and medium-sized businesses. We'll help you better utilize technology to reach your business goals.