SOHO Email Hosting or Alternatives

[Ted Roche]

Seth Cohn wrote:
>> What are some good alternatives for a Small Office - Home Office
>> business for setting up email for their domain?
> 
> If outsourcing is acceptable, Google Apps for domains will give you
> the most fully featured options, with no effort and no cost
> (optional).  It's hard to beat.  http://www.google.com/a/

For SOHO with an emphasis on S(mall), a web site that wants a few dozen
low-traffic mail accounts can't go wrong. Of course, Google reads every
word you write ;)

> For a slightly larger company, any good hosting company should provide
> the ability to have a large number of real addresses (and forwards),
> webmail, spamfiltering, etc.  I speak from direct knowledge, since I
> offer that now, stock, and so does any credible hosting company
> offering cpanel/etc.

Is Google threatening to eat your lunch on this aspect? While I
understand a hosting company offers a lot more in terms of
customization, consulting, a selection of CMS apps (when are we going to
see Drupal?), the little "business card sized" sites could just get a
domain off GoDaddy and set up a couple of pages like:

http://www.iayft.com-a.googlepages.com/

and they're good to go... free hosting. Do you see Google as threatening
hosting providers, or is that just a side effect. What's Google's goal?
Are they trying to (re-)create the Read/Write web?

> If you are talking about inhouse hosting, I don't think a small SOHO
> should be doing that, since the time/costs aren't worth the effort.

I generally agree, unless they're doing something fancy like publishing
a database-backed web app on their wire, in which case they'd better
have some expertise to support that.

> Hosting costs as low as $5 a month will yield the above features, and
> I don't think it can be done inhouse for $60 a year (in time to setup
> and maintain it all if nothing else)

Works out if you're also using the wire as your internet connectivity,
but you're facing single-point-of-failure and you're at the mercy of the
local electric and ISP companies.

I guess what I was originally querying was the Zero-Technology solution
for email and Google Apps really looks like a killer solution. I hadn't
been thinking along those lines, and I'll try it out for a couple of the
domains I've got.

Thanks, all, for your suggestions.



-- 
Ted Roche
Ted Roche & Associates, LLC
http://www.tedroche.com