Email is one of the most common communication tools used by businesses, but not all options are as good as others. For this week’s tip, we’re recommending that you embrace hosted email in your own operations. Here’s why.

Let’s consider the average personal email address for a moment, and how it differs from what you should be looking for in a business email address.

One of these personal email accounts is likely to have a few characteristics:

• It is free
• It offers limited storage and features
• It has a generic URL attached to it, like gmail-dot-com or AOL-dot-com

While this might fit the bill quite well for a private user, none of these options are good for a business. Limited storage and features will only create hang-ups and difficulties, and a generic URL doesn’t exactly let someone know what company you’re with. Even the free price tag suggests challenges—you get what you pay for, as the saying goes.

Many businesses that have to have more control over its email platform have resigned to hosting its own Exchange server. While this will have the desired effect, it does come with some challenges. They include:

• Takes more technical skill and time to set up and administer
• Presents challenges of migrating messages from one system to another
• Chances of significant downtime increase
• Spam filtering is not included and carries extra cost and time
• You are responsible for securing it, managing it, and keeping it updated and running

These problems can be extremely costly. Fortunately for the modern business there are solutions that can give you the benefits of both a locally-hosted email server and the ease of management and accessibility of a personal cloud email solution. 

Getting Hosted Email

Today, there are enterprise-level hosted email solutions that come as a part of a greater productivity suite. Both Google’s G Suite and Microsoft Office 365 provide users a complete productivity suite as well as an enterprise-level email for every account. Using these platforms for your business accomplishes several different benefits. They include:

• No new infrastructure costs
• Pay for the amount of accounts you need and can scale up and back as needed
• No longer have to pay an in-house IT person to manage your email infrastructure
• One bill, not several
• Built-in productivity suites (word processor, spreadsheet, and presentation software)
• Built-in management, spam protection, and security
• No longer have to pay for new software licenses, all software is maintained by the provider
• More storage as needed
• Email is backed up by provider
• Anytime, anywhere access

...and more.

If you are looking for a way to get solid email and productivity software and reduce your capital outlay, call the IT professionals at Data Net today at (760) 466-1200.