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Email Provider

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#11
@Kevin - every service has its pros and cons. If you really think that Microsoft and Rackspace are more "secure", I have a bridge I would like to sell you. And, really... we are selling/servicing cars... not a black-ops, high risk, life-and-death, CIA type operation.

Funny how people will install ask.com toolbars with no worries, but then freak-out when a computer algorithm reads their email?? Remember that MS has only made an official statement that they "don't read your email to target you with ads" - you think they are not scanning it for other reasons?? And BTW, Google Apps paid has no ads...so that might be a mute point.

They all cost about the same now in the end, all about $4-5/month per user...so it really comes down to features, business requirements, and expectation of privacy. And for privacy, if you use ANY hosted/cloud provider you should not expect complete privacy. If you really want the illusion (still has to pass through the ISP) of complete privacy.... get your own exchange server.

Just my 3 cents....
 
#12
We have just over 1600 accounts. All but 2 are on the Rackspace Email platform. Each account has 25GB of storage and we are paying less than $1 per account each month. As big a fan as I have been though, Rackspace has, by their own admission, had trouble keeping up with the increased demand on their servers. Within the last month, we have had 4-5 instances of SMTP issues because the servers were overwhelmed.
 
#14
I think the @Kevin was aimed at me and not Morrison but I love the factual information. With over 17,000 auto dealers in our quiver we also have a focus of providing UP-time with most large cloud platforms can provide. That said, YES Drew I do believe that Microsoft cannot read the emails from dealers on the Office365 platform for multiple reasons. 1. The AD Security built into it is FISMA certified for even white house usage which happens to be on Office365. 2. The policies and security built into the Exchange platform have been proven for tens of years and used by the top companies worldwide. 3. Google was born 6 ish years ago, Microsoft's platform has been proven secure for longer than Sergey has been alive. All of this said, my point, our collective point is that dealers need to migrate to a platform that is current, now, sufficient and affordable. There are two that I would endorse here which are Office365 and Rackspace. Every dealer I see using Google or gMail has converted within two conversations. I appreciate that you have moved dealers to a better platform than simple IMAP from a local IT firm however G is not for dealers. We have too many compliance rules to obey. We are just selling cars but ask Lithia about their text messaging practices or other large dealer groups like Gosch about DMV practices and AutoNation about privacy and customer security. We need to start providing services to the 1 to 3 store dealers that are the equivalent of what large dealer groups are setting as the standard. In closing - None of the large dealer groups are on Google Apps - they all have Exchange either in Office365 or Rackspace or on Premise.
 
#16
Email is one of those things that no matter who you use as a provider, even yourself there is never any expectation of privacy. Email is a old protocol that is very easy to read as it is traveling around the internet. The best you can do it have your own server and who really wants the headaches associated with running your own mail server? The next best option is PGP and that requires both parties to have the key to read it and for us not worth the hassle. If you want privacy go back to sneakernet ie. hand deliver the messages.

Back to the topic, Rackspace is very feature light compared to the other but there price shows it, $2 or $3 with contact sync or $10 for exchange. The benefit is Office 365 is the lesser cost upfront of desktop versions of Office, long term 2y+, it costs more than just buying Office. I think we are leaning to Google Apps with a few people still using desktop office but the main client/office solution of choice being Thunderbird + LibreOffice + Office Viewer.
 
#17
Kevin, I was actually replying to your question from the 25th - "Great point Charles and Kevin... Using Rackspace is great and they are a great cloud provider. When using Rackspace - what email platform are your using and at what price? This is the question."

Looks like I should have replied directly to that post! My bad.
 
#19
We currently use a hosted Exchange setup, but we've deployed Office 365 and many other solutions.
I have personally been involved in everything from Google Apps to Zimbra to custom mail implementations that cost thousands upon thousands simply because no one else had that one feature they wanted.

When it all boils down to it, M$ servers are in the U.S. and therefore cannot be deemed secure. Kevin McMillen, while I respect your opinion, you work for a company that makes their money off Office 365 so I have to weigh that in my considerations. When it comes to security, you cannot tell me that Office 365 is secure. Microsoft has all but admitted that they gave the NSA a backdoor to their hotmail and there's a large amount of coincidence between the time that M$ bought Skype and the time that the NSA reports they had access to a "global communication platform".

It would be best if this thread could stick to the discussion of email providers and not become a discussion about keeping your inventory safe from spies.
 
#20
We ended up going with Google Apps compared to Exchange Online Plan 1 for a few reasons:
  • They have been doing hosted services a lot longer than Microsoft
  • Its only $1 a month more but gives web apps and support for legacy platforms (Office 2003), IM
  • Better integration with Thunderbird
  • MS might offer this but I couldn't find it anywhere, Google support the use of a 2ndary mail server so we can have less important accounts on a free provider
  • Google Drive, there is no Skydrive until you get the $8/month plan

Office 365 is a joke. After 15 months you might as well have bought a full copy Office 2013 or 8 to pay for Outlook 2013 figuring its an additional $16/month to upgrade to Enterprise E3.
 
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