SOHO Email Hosting or Alternatives

[Seth Cohn]

> 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?

Not really.  If anything, they are taking the bottom feeders who want
simple static web pages, ala geocities used to provide, who won't pay
for hosting or development. Those people never really were "customers"

I'm doing database driven websites (Drupal mostly), as are the
majority of designers these days, using everything from php to ruby to
java.  Google isn't touching that, and likely won't.

> 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.

The price is right, and despite yahoo and hotmail's years ahead in the
market, google has swept up the webmail market place and keeps
growing.... Google's Apps are now moving toward replacing Microsoft
Office.  They won't, but between Google and OpenOffice, the cashcow
will get thinner and thinner for MS.