Re: [tlug] outsourcing email service

["GMO Unix Erin D. Hughes" <erin-hughes@example.com>]

On Thu, 2006-09-14 at 11:45 +0900, Micheal E. Cooper wrote:
> Logically, a company with a data center, backup facilities, a spam/virus
> firewall, and full-time support should be able to host plenty of virtual
> mail servers and use the economies of scale to offer other organizations
> email support for less than it costs to do it in-house.

Micheal I am sorry I do not know your situation but you are looking for
hosting for your self, your company and if so the number of employees
who need mail service, and the number of people who support them.  

What is your current situation? Are you trying to move away from a old
server or service or looking to start from scratch?  

> I also sent an inquiry to Zimbra.

I use Zimbra on a server of my own it is quite a nice package and provides users
with something they want to use as opposed to have to use. 
Every thing is built from open source tools 
IE: POSTFIX and MySQL etc.... and its setup is easy as running a RPM
transaction and and answering a few questions along the way.
***Disclaimer You Should know Something about setting up your own DNS as
well.***** 

I have a article for my website in the works about it ... and will let
you know when it is finished. BUT right now there is not a Japanese
translation.....I hear one is coming soon. 


> What do you think about the wisdom of outsourcing email to an off-site
> service?

Depends on your numbers, skill level, and responsibility in my opinion. 
Others might say "I want to call some one else when there is a
problem..." I do not. I am not the worlds greatest technician but I do
not want to here what some customer service rep says as he goes through
the same apology for the 1000th time that day...and most bosses don't
want to hear "they said they are working on it at the data center..."
That said, my opinion is if you can do it, and can get a budget worthy
of it, do mail your self. 

 
> Is anyone doing this?

I even host my own mail on my own server at a data center (formerly located at my house),
because even Yahoo and Google make mistakes. Very few I might add but I
did not get a job one time because yahoo failed to deliver a mail.