Why do I need a Mail Server?

Question

I have a small business, and currently we aresubscribing to 15 email accounts from our local ISP. I was told that I should invest in a mail server. What is it, and why do i need it?

I looked into some solutions such as Exchange and Lotus Notes. These are expensive pieces of Software! Recururing charges and so on. Is there something cheaper? we're a small office and I don't invision spending all that money on the hardware, and then have to fork out just as much for the software too.

Answer 1

You are borderline reaching the needs for a mail server. Depending on your business needs you may benefit from it. I always recommend small business server for your size of environment. Now why would you want a product like exchange vs 15 simple pop accounts-
Collaboration- Exchange offers real time collaboration with multiple people in your company. Along with group calenders, sharing schedules, email access, and seldom used public folders, you can automate tasks assignment.

Realtime e-mail. Exchange routes the mail as it hits the mail server. you don't ever have to hit send and recieve. your workers recieve the e-mail stating mandatory emergency meeting in my office now! immediately if they have the client open.
granular permissions, and more control. The best example of the first is your secretary needs to check your e-mail, respond per your direction and you are away from the office with a client. She can do all this and more without having to log onto your e-mail. the second example is you've just gotten a contract to manufacture a new product. CAD Drawings being gigantic won't pass the 5 or 10 mb limit on your current hosting. change the limits. Or enact a mailbox limit to all your company or just one group.
Fax from e-mail- the small business server allows someone to fax directly from their desktop. so instead of an employee typing up a document, printing it, taking it off the printer, over to the fax machine and returning to their desk because they forgot the phone number; they simply send it from their desktop directly to the fax service. This also is a nice way to distribute incomming faxes without have months of small rolled up papers laying everywhere.

if you fully utilize all the features of Exchange some businesses gain upto 300% RIO on this type of collaboration. (gartner claims upt o 700% but that's a bit unrealistic in my experience)
I'm not saying you will get all of this, but the tools make it available. I'd guess your business would beneift from a proper business intelligence from the IT perspective project, but then I'd be solicitating.

Answer 2

With your own mail server, you have complete control over your e-mail and collaboration environment.

You do not depend upon internet access for intra-office e-mail.

You can add a new e-mail domain to your system any time you choose without worrying about limits imposed by the service provider.

You control SPAM filtering yourself and can recover false positives quickly and easily.

You can add users instantly without worrying about maximum mailbox limits from the service provider.

The size of your users' mailboxes is directly controlled by you, you can make them as large or small as you want.

I've got my own mail server and wouldn't do it any other way. If nothing else, I can "mail bomb" spammers with a couple of mouse clicks. THAT is real power. ;)

Answer 3

Just obtain a website with webmail and user accounts. What they mean is this:

for example your company is called "mybusiness"

They are saying, register http://www.mybusiness.com
and within that account you can for example lets say have 50 email accounts.

ie

[e-mail], [e-mail]

That's what I do with my website, since it includes 50 email accounts. When they say mail server, you can think of it as just registering a website name (even if you dont want a website) you can register a website package plan with low space and just invest in a plan that has a high number of user access (email accounts)

hope this helps and makes a bit more sense, sorry I cannot explain it to you much better it makes sense to me though lol.

Answer 4

Don't think so

Answer 5

it depends...