> But again, with business class Gmail/Google Apps, we're talking > about $5 per unique email address which would run me $500 per month > for my email users. A quite ridiculous cost! > > I get SmarterMail 11 Professional, which includes up to 250 users > or domains included with my Virtual Dedicated Server.
As an end-user, I don't think $5 per month sounds like a lot for the most important network service I use. As an administrator, there is simply no comparison I could make between the two. What happens if your virtual dedicated server takes a dump? How long will it take you to get your users online again? What sort of data loss would they incur? What kind of mail quotas can you handle? What happens if a mailbox is corrupted? What happens if you run out of disk space? Etc, etc, etc. Like most everything else in life, you get what you pay for. > I've found all the online interfaces; outlook.com, gmail, and even > SmarterMail to be slower when it comes to handling mail than > desktop outlook. There's no way an online service can compete with > locally installed software that I've found. If an online server can > keep up with locally installed software, then there's probably something > wrong with the local installation. I guess it depends on what you mean by "handling mail". In general, I find Gmail to be much faster and more efficient than Outlook. I've used Outlook for many years (and you can use it with Google Apps if you want, via Google Apps Sync for Microsoft Outlook). If you want to read new mail, any client is still going to have to fetch it from the server. If you want to read old mail, Outlook will likely already have it stored, but you still have to get to it, and finding email in Gmail is quite a bit easier. If you want to search the contents of your OST or PST for something, that search can take a long time. If you search Gmail, it takes seconds. And of course, there's only so much mail you can practically store in a single OST or PST, so you typically end up with PST archives all over the place that you effectively can't get to at all unless you open them up. I have PST archives for about ten years worth of email that I'll likely never open again. I work with quite a few people switching from Exchange to Google Apps, and they're all the same way - PSTs all over the place. I used Outlook for years. I would never go back. It would make me much less productive. Dave Watts, CTO, Fig Leaf Software http://www.figleaf.com/ http://training.figleaf.com/ Fig Leaf Software is a Veteran-Owned Small Business (VOSB) on GSA Schedule, and provides the highest caliber vendor-authorized instruction at our training centers, online, or onsite. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~| Order the Adobe Coldfusion Anthology now! http://www.amazon.com/Adobe-Coldfusion-Anthology/dp/1430272155/?tag=houseoffusion Archive: http://www.houseoffusion.com/groups/cf-talk/message.cfm/messageid:355438 Subscription: http://www.houseoffusion.com/groups/cf-talk/subscribe.cfm Unsubscribe: http://www.houseoffusion.com/groups/cf-talk/unsubscribe.cfm
