ping FOFC's legendary IT infocache

[QuikSand]

Yes, once again looking for some general guidance for IT-related things a bit beyond my grasp.


I'm the manager of a fairly small office (8 full time employees plus some riffraff), who has been using GroupWise as our email system for some time. It has generally served us fine, but the list of grievances (not working well with our association database, website, or mobile devices) has me all but firm in concluding it's time for a change.

My IT guy (through an arrangement, I pay for a minority share of his costs and time) has given us advice that seems surprising to me -- difficult and costly. his suggestion is that for us to maintain a self-contained system (forgive my rough terminology here -- but at the moment we actually have our email server housed in our building) would have quite a lot of up-front costs (like $10K or so to invest in the new multi-server equipment), and to have a "hosted" system where all that stuff is elsewhere would entail some pretty steep ongoing (monthly) costs (like $30 per month for each user, and another $30 per month for each mobile device).

I honestly am just not educated enough to know what to think of this. On a certain level, I feel like I have my car at the shop, and the mechanic correctly smells a dummy customer, and is feeding me bullshit. In this case, though, I think the agenda is to give em information that makes the change sound so difficult that I will back off, and we would remain status quo (IT guy is a big pro-GroupWise partisan).


Anyway... my bigger picture questions are:

-If you run an office with 10 or so people, is everyone out there essentially paying $500-1,000 a month just to have a fairly routine email system? Seriously?

-Is an MS Outlook system the best way to go, or is a service through Google or something else a viable option for us?

-Assuming I want to learn more about this sort of stuff beyond what I have described above, is the best thing to do just to call around with some local vendors and start getting quotes for what service package they would recommend/offer? (That's my leaning now)



Thanks in advance for any help... not looking to unfairly tax your time, but the quick "check this link" or "that sounds about right" would be very helpful.

[Coffee Warlord]

General statement 1: $500+ a month for a small little shop, for a fucking EMAIL system is ludicrous.

Addendum 1: ...depending on what exactly "association database, website, or mobile devices" actually means/what exactly you need your mail to do beyond "kick out and receive mail".

General Statement 2: If you're looking for cost savings for a small company, Outlook is absolutely NOT the way to go.

[johnnyshaka]

Love Groupwise myself, but my workplace (small school district) will likely be Groupwise-free before Xmas and using Gmail. I'm going to miss my Groupwise system...that works like a hot damn and has done so for the last 10 years!!! :(

I suppose the "what do you use email for" question needs to be asked. Are you guys pumping out/receiving hundreds/thousands of emails per day...what kind of traffic are we talking? Do you need to retain your email for any length of time for legal reasons? What kind of email are we talking about...sensitive info or just the routine day to day memo stuff?

Personally, without knowing the nature of your business, Gmail can certainly be a viable solution. Again, depending on the kind of space requirements needed for your users and how your employer feels about having email stored "in the cloud" versus in your building. Also, local ISPs can be a good option, too. For example, Shaw (one of my local ISPs) offers various "business" plans that include bandwitdh, email addresses, and webspace for a monthly fee...much cheaper than what you quoted, though.

[QuikSand]

General statement 1: $500+ a month for a small little shop, for a fucking EMAIL system is ludicrous.

Well, at least I'm on the right track. This was my uninformed response as well.

As far as what we do via email, it's not unusual -- we all do a lot of business/communication through email, this is a trade association so there's a combination of policy work, member contact, and marketing that uses that medium. We use Constant Contact for many of our broad-based marketing things, but we fairly routinely want to send out en email to a selected group of, say, 50 people from our database. Right now, that entails a bunch of nonsense steps to do so through GroupWise. We essentially use GroupWise for two things -- email and scheduling. It has other functions like task management that we do not employ at all.

[Subby]

I would definitely go the hosted route. Getting rid of your email server has the added benefit of cutting down on the amount of time you need GroupWise Boy.

Google Apps is huge because it is cheap and powerful. Migration is a bit tricky.

Microsoft cloud offering, Live365, has promise but I would advocate getting off of the MS tit if possible.

Bottom line, I don't care how good your backup system is - get your email storage and processing out of the office.

[QuikSand]

Sorry that I don't have detailed figures, but my best description of the what we do is:

-our volume of email and other electronic stuff is unlikely to be unusual, we are not mass users by any means

-we're a semi-public organization, and are likely to be a bit more worried about security than a more fly-by-night outfit might (but I can likely control that)

[Aylmar]

Gmail is $50 a year (per user) for business accounts (assuming they can get beyond the concerns noted by johnnyshaka about email being "in the cloud"). For a small shop, I wouldn't really bother looking anywhere else. Agree with Coffee, though, that my statements are really useless without knowing more details on what else the email system needs to do...

[wade moore]

Sorry that I don't have detailed figures, but my best description of the what we do is:

-our volume of email and other electronic stuff is unlikely to be unusual, we are not mass users by any means

-we're a semi-public organization, and are likely to be a bit more worried about security than a more fly-by-night outfit might (but I can likely control that)

I had the same immediate "Google Apps" reaction that others did.

The only concern, and I can relate, is from the security side. I don't know what Google's promises are on this side and that's what I would want to get more information on if I was you.

In addition - the "pulling stuff from the database". Without understanding how you're doing those e-mail lists, I wonder what is involved here? Is this not something where you could just pull a list of e-mail addresses as needed?

[Subby]

The security you are going to get from Google or a hosting operation is probably a lot better than one you are getting in house. Forget hacking - much easier to break down your door and remove your server from your office than it would be if it was hosted or in the cloud.

[albionmoonlight]

Re: quasi-public.

I work for the federal government. I used to get my work email forwarded to my personal gmail account b/c it was easier to only have to check the one account on evenings and weekends.

But I had to stop that for security reasons. Basically, the powers that be decided that it was easier to hack into people's personal email than the government servers, so all mass-forwarding of emails to personal accounts had to stop.

Basically, if this is the trend, you might want to consider that. Depending on how "public" your "quasi-public" status is, you would hate to go through the trouble of migrating to the cloud only to have a state law pass in six months saying that all government email services must remain on government owned servers or some such thing.

This, of course, may have nothing to do with you, but it seems worth considering.

[jeff061]

On the phone so real quick and dirty. I think hosted makes real good sense for you, don't have to worry you about backups, software/hardware maintenance, etc.

But the costs you quoted seem way off base.

[DaddyTorgo]

Hosted is far and away the way to go.

[QuikSand]

I'm sorry for my non-technical answers... but I really, really do appreciate the feedback.


Currently, we have an old proprietary database (that's on its way to being replaced) that nominally has an emailing capacity, but it never worked well (possibly due to poorly trained staff). So, we have routinely run reports from our database, and essentially "pasted" that information into GroupWise to create a group for a multi-purpose send-out.

Looking forward, it's completely my intention to use a more modern database as a tool for emailing, hopefully out of the DB application itself, but if not then through some workable integration with our new email client/solution.

[stevew]

The obvious answer is to go apple. Cause it worked so well the last time.

[PackerFanatic]

I've been using Groupwise for the 3 and a half years at my current job and I can say that it is more of a PITA than Outlook ever was for me (then again, it could also be the fact that they won't allow us to save more than 3 months worth of e-mails...but I digress). On the plus side, we are moving to Outlook by next year.

I concur with others on hosted solution though for such a small operation.

[AgustusM]

step 1- find new IT guy. that suggestion tells me he is either crooked or incompetent.

step 2 - gmail is good, g docs are fine - but I find that most of what I do in excel\outlook\powerpoint cannot be easily done in any of the limited free or online aps. It is well worth the money for me to have a full licensed copy off MS office. Your mileage may vary depending on you actual app usage

step 3 - I would consider MS new office 365 - for my money you can not beat all that you get for 6 bucks a month per user.
Buy Office 365 for Small Business and Professionals (http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/office365/buy-small-business.aspx#fbid=Dv76fytMjp3)

step 4 - if you wan security you need someone to manage it. As we saw with dropbox last month and countless other times true security is a myth. If it is in the cloud, it is always possible for someone to drop the ball. If it is in your building the maid, janitor, you own employee can steal it with a flash drive or any other number of methods. The best you can do is create best practices that keep you as safe as possible, and have a dedicated person keep on top of it. Probably tough to do in such a small shop with limited resources

step 5 - go back to step 1 - you really need a reliable guy to lean on who is honest and keeps up with the ever changing industry. They are out there I know because I use to be one.

[QuikSand]

It is not inconceivable that I could replace the IT guy, but the relationship is weird (he works for someone else, I contribute toward his care and feeding for a share of his time). The cost in my own capital would not be worth the outcome, very likely. I trust my judgment here.


We already have fully licensed MS Office products, and intend to keep using them. All I have on the table is replacing GroupWise with some comparable system for email and scheduling. Other features that might come along with it would be gravy, but only that.


The security issues, I think, might make this somewhat complicated. While I think our current setup is unwieldy and probably too expensive, I'm not really worried about security. (Fortunately, it's not like we're a top secret outfit with deep trade secrets or anything like that)


Anyway, this guidance has been worth ten times what my own paid people have been able to muster. I'll gladly PM each of you a ginger ale for the effort.

[Subby]

If you don't care too much about security, then at least consider disaster recovery. If something catastrophic happens to that email server (or file server, or database server) in your office, can you honestly and comfortably say that you would have ALL of your data available within 24 hours? A week? At all? A hosted solution or Cloud (SaaS) solution gives you that.

[Young Drachma]

Anyway... my bigger picture questions are:

-If you run an office with 10 or so people, is everyone out there essentially paying $500-1,000 a month just to have a fairly routine email system? Seriously?

-Is an MS Outlook system the best way to go, or is a service through Google or something else a viable option for us?

-Assuming I want to learn more about this sort of stuff beyond what I have described above, is the best thing to do just to call around with some local vendors and start getting quotes for what service package they would recommend/offer? (That's my leaning now)



Thanks in advance for any help... not looking to unfairly tax your time, but the quick "check this link" or "that sounds about right" would be very helpful.

Email Hosting - Business Email Hosting by Rackspace (http://www.rackspace.com/apps/email_hosting/)

About $100 a month, no servers to maintain and 365/24/7 support. Email to your portable devices, in-house devices and remote Outlook access. Gmail is fine, but this solution gives you the support you don't get with Google and is already supporting a bevy of companies large, small and in-between.

From what you've said, seriously Rackspace is your best option.

[Toddzilla]

Zimbra!

Easy as pie, it's powerful, the users love it, and pretty cheap. VMWare owns them and they do a great job maintaining it.

There are providers that will host it for you if you want to go that route.

I'm the IT Director of a 15-person company and I love it. There's a nice desktop app, too.

Or, get Google to handle mail for you - if you can stomach the privacy issues.

[Toddzilla]

Oh, FWIW, we run it on a $300 desktop. The software itself cost about $700 for 25 users, so you can put it together for under $1000 and be running by Monday.

[DanGarion]

I had the same immediate "Google Apps" reaction that others did.

The only concern, and I can relate, is from the security side. I don't know what Google's promises are on this side and that's what I would want to get more information on if I was you.

In addition - the "pulling stuff from the database". Without understanding how you're doing those e-mail lists, I wonder what is involved here? Is this not something where you could just pull a list of e-mail addresses as needed?

Google offers additional security with a 2 step verification process that is pretty top notch as well (if you choose to implement it).