E-Mail Outsourcing

E-mail Outsourcing

In recent years, outsourcing of e-mail in companies and schools has become very popular. Companies like Google and Microsoft are receiving the benefit of this. There are several benefits and risks associated with this move. I would like discuss these, along with ways to help protect from the risks.

First, I would like to take a better look at Google's web based e-mail, Gmail. Like Google, Microsoft operates their web based e-mail under the name Hotmail. For many years this was Yahoo! Mails biggest competition. Much later in the web based e-mail game, Google introduced Gmail. This forced Yahoo! and Hotmail to upgrade to offer features that they previously did not. Gmail is simply a web based e-mail that can be used for personal accounts and that can also be outsourced to companies and schools. Gmail allows businesses and school to purchase their own domains for $10 a year. The membership comes with a 30 day free trial of Google Apps for Business, full DNS control and management, and private registration to protect persona information. Google Apps for Business is a set of online tools that includes your custom e-mail domain, calendar and other documents. It also allows mobile access and a lot of storage.

Moving on to the benefits associated with outsourcing e-mail, I would like to first look at the benefits that Google lists themselves. Gmail requires no hardware or software installation and I approximately 1/3 of the cost of other competitors. Gmail has 50 times more storage space than its competitors with 25 GB per user. Mobile access is also included free of charge and is supported on Blackberry, iPhone, Android and several other phones. Google guarantees that the apps will be available 99.9% of the time resulting in more productivity and less down time.

Along with the benefits listed above, Google also promises security with customizable features such as spam and inbound mail filtering, as well as outbound mail filtering, powered by Postini. There are also customizable information sharing features, password length and requirements with visual strength indicators to help the user pick secure passwords. In addition, HTTPS secure internet access is also in place. Gmail also allows full administrative and data control and has 24/7 customer support.

So with that all said, I would like to talk about what I think are the top three benefits to outsourcing e-mail: cost savings, storage space and what I will call "added features". As I mentioned previously, it costs $10 to set up a domain. In addition, a Google App plan is $50 per user a year, totaling $60 per user each year. And schools have an even better deal of FREE! Students, staff and faculty of qualifying institutions receive the product absolutely free. During the Fall of 2009, Temple University saved around $1 million just by moving it's professors and administrators