Google Apps = Email Peace of Mind
For years I have hosted my own email in one way or another, sometimes in my own office, on a shared hosting server, or on a dedicated hosted server. My main requirements were to have IMAP and web access so I could easily keep all email in one place and access it from anywhere. After trying Lotus Notes, Scalix, hMailServer, and a number of other open source options for Windows and Linux, I finally gave up after discovering Google Apps.
With Google Apps, I get all the power of Gmail as if it is my my own domain email server. Even though it’s Gmail, everything I send is from solodevelopersuccess.com. The free standard version includes 25 accounts with 8gb of storage each as well as Google Calendar, Google Docs, Google Chat and Google Sites. I can even set Google Sites to be my primary web site, however it’s quite limited so I’m sticking with using a shared server account from A2 Hosting.
Google Apps plays well with Microsoft Outlook, just configure it as an IMAP account according to their Help page. If you have a Windows Mobile device with the Google Toolbar installed, you can configure it to recognize a Google Apps site making mobile access a breeze.
Finally, Google Apps allows for additional domains to be added to a single account. This way, all email from abc.com, def.com and ghi.com can be received under a single Google login. And, when sending email, I can easily pick which domain I want to appear in the From address.
Best of all, it’s all free, although you can upgrade to the Premium account for only $50 per user per year. The Premium Edition increases storage to 25gb per user and works with the Google Plug In for Microsoft Outlook. It also adds additional business-specific features such as Postini hosted email and security services. When you look at the required investment for a small business Exchange Server, Google Apps makes a lot of economic sense. Not only in straight dollars, but also in the peace of mind knowing that a local internet outage won’t disrupt your ability to send and receive email.
If you’re looking for a low cost and easy to manage email solution, I encourage you to check out Google Apps.