How E-mail Outsourcing Can Free Up Your Company's Resources

You know how important e-mail is to your enterprise.  What you
may not realize is that maintaining your own e-mail server might
not be the best way to do your business.   
 
The last year has brought a lot of hype about "application
service providers" -- companies which handle the software
administration of customers so they don't have to.  But
outsourced e-mail is turning into the biggest success story of
all, because, says George Peabody, vice president of the Aberdeen
Group, "the technology for the care and feeding of a mail system
is well understood.  And, outsourcing it leaves you with the
ability to spend your company's money elsewhere."  Moving out the
responsibility and server racks isn't just cost-effective,
either: doing so yields an added level of security and
reliability, from a specialized provider with resources dedicated
to staying ahead of the curve.
 
Small-, medium-, and even large-scale enterprises are saying
goodbye to the software and hardware concerns, and staffing
headaches, of maintaining their own e-mail capability.  According
to many analysts, before long, most companies will be contracting
out their e-mail: a Gartner Group study estimates that "by 2001,
50% of enterprises currently uninterested in outsourcing will
outsource at least 5% of their messaging budget."
 
If you contract with an e-mail service provider, all you'll need
is a connection to the internet, and a staff member with the
responsibility of creating the users on a secure webpage.  From
then on, your users will be able to access their e-mail using the
same applications they've grown accustomed to.  
 
One company that's switched is SilverBack Technologies, a
Billerica, MA management service provider with 65 employees.  To
SilverBack IT manager Larry Bolick, outsourcing e-mail is like
using a third-party telephony system:  "The real advantage of
Centrex is you can get good, very reliable, basic telephone
functionality without having to worry about managing the box or
the services that the box requires.  And e-mail is a lot like
that -- especially at our end of the market."
 
"Outsourcing... frees up some manpower, because we don't have to
manage mailboxes.  Reliability is another piece of it -- because
you have people 24/7 actually watching the application."
 
Putting everything on the "outside" may require a change in
mindset.  Says Peabody, "One of the reasons that some enterprises
look at ASPs with some skepticism is that you could be putting
the 'crown jewels' of the company into the hands of a third
party."
 
SilverBack took careful stock of its needs before tailoring its
service agreement.  For the sake of confidentiality, for example,
the company has arranged for PSINet to certifiably wipe its host
servers of any trace of e-mails.  "We're not that concerned with
our history -- there's really not that much to hide -- what we
are concerned about is the security of our proprietary
information," says Bolick.  On the other hand, he suggests, a
company which requires an extra level of system diligence -- a
law firm, for example -- will need to decide whether to operate a
backup system locally, or contract with the provider for the
service.  
 
If you're a candidate for e-mail outsourcing, the best thing you
can do is assess your needs with an eye to the future.
 
1) Some companies will fit in naturally -- for example, those new
to e-mail, or who are breaking out of legacy systems which would
require major capital expenditure to upgrade.  Likewise,
companies anticipating the sort of intensive growth, locally or
decentralized, which can challenge many typical e-mail server
configurations, are good candidates.   
 
2) There are a variety of plans with options such as user
aliases, groupware functionality, and end-user storage space to
choose from.  Nor is it an all-or-nothing-at-all proposition --
so for example, SilverBack will very likely soon set up an
Exchange server to handle the front-office needs of sales and
marketing staff, while its engineers will continue to use the
PSINet gateway.
 
 
Of course, you're probably not worried whether it's within the
capability of your IT staff to handle all your e-mail traffic
(that is, unless you are).  But unless they've got something to
prove, going outside for e-mail is likely the most viable path.  
As IDC's Amy Mizouras puts it, "If your core competency is not to
manage your e-mail system, and you don't want to spend your time
and resources managing an e-mail system, then it would probably
make a lot of sense to go outside.  It's the same reason I might
pay someone to clean my house when I'm perfectly capable of doing
it -- it might cost me $60 a month... but I don't have time to
clean my house, and I have a lot more important things to do than
scrub floors."