Help Us Find an E-mail Server

September 28, 2006 11:49 AM

We need a new e-mail server for our (very) small, growing company. Who do you recommend that could set up our service tomorrow, today, yesterday?

We have a web based server that we're using through Outlook (POP) that we've been unhappy with for awhile. The server has a tendency to lurch to a stop for hours on end, or block important client e-mail, and in this business, that's not acceptable. We get a lot of e-mail (including lots of spam, grr- but we also get a lot of important mail from weird addresses that some spam filters block) and send a lot of big files. We would love to find a server that would be able to set up our accounts (4-5 separate accounts, with the ability to create infinity aliases) as soon as possible (before the 5th of October, at the latest). Any recs, tech genius'? We do not have a tech department of our own.

posted by ThePinkSuperhero to computers & internet (19 comments total)

I'll do it for $1000 + whatever fees your hosting company charges. Email server + excellent spam protection + antivirus.
posted by four panels at 11:56 AM on September 28, 2006

IMAP not POP, + webmail.
posted by four panels at 11:58 AM on September 28, 2006

How big are the files you send, on average?

What kind of budget do you have for this?
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 11:58 AM on September 28, 2006

Completed by Saturday, September 30.
posted by four panels at 11:59 AM on September 28, 2006

We send files in the 5- 15 MB range fairly often, which our currently little server cannot handle.

As for budget, I have no idea. Let's pretend cost is no object.
posted by ThePinkSuperhero at 12:00 PM on September 28, 2006 [1 favorite]

I think I misunderstood you. Media Temple has all this for $15 a month.
posted by four panels at 12:03 PM on September 28, 2006

Maybe I'm not using the right words-

This is what we have. Service can be spotty. We want another service.

I apologize for being technically inept.
posted by ThePinkSuperhero at 12:08 PM on September 28, 2006 [1 favorite]

Reliable mail hosting specialists (i.e., not web hosts that happen to offer email): Outblaze, Pobox Mailstore, Electric Mail, fastmail. I know mail administrators at the first two well, and the third ok, and I know they're on top of things; the fourth I know from others' recommendations.

There's also Postini but they're really aiming more enterprise-level.

If you're using Outlook specifically you might benefit from Exchange hosting, which gets you shared calendaring and the like. We're using Allstream for our hosted Exchange server but that's probably overkill for you, but I don't know any small-office Exchange hosting solutions that I'd specifically recommend.
posted by mendel at 12:29 PM on September 28, 2006

Google apps for your domain?
posted by chrisroberts at 12:29 PM on September 28, 2006

I realize they say it's still in beta, but there's always Google apps for business.

The one caveat with whoever you choose is going to be the file size. My company uses a host that can't take attachments over 10 meg, and I have the feeling this is fairly common with shared hosts. You might want to ask at web hosting talk or here.
posted by SteveInMaine at 12:30 PM on September 28, 2006

Hosted Exchange would be a good option if you're on Windows/Outlook.

These guys will give you 10 mailboxes with a gig of storage each for $125 a month. Their HQ is in NYC as well. There are a lot of bells & whistles too - anti-spam, max attachment size of 20 MB (better than some corporations who host their own email in my experience), Outlook web access, blackberry support, blah blah blah.

I have never used them and just found them via Google, but they, or somebody like them would probably be a good bet.
posted by GuyZero at 12:33 PM on September 28, 2006

"We send files in the 5- 15 MB range fairly often ..."
posted by ThePinkSuperhero at 3:00 PM EST on September 28

A lot of mail systems are going to intentionally choke on attachments that big, as leaving a mail machine open to them is a great way of opening a mail system to DOS attacks. So, there may be nothing wrong with your server, except that you are forcing it to be teergrubed by many servers to which it connects, trying to send your huge attachments.

Most of my personal mail servers are set to teergrube servers that connect to mine, from spam domains, or who try to do nasty things like send big attachments. If your server contacted mine, saying "I have a message for you, with a 12 Mb file attachment." my server would say to your server, "Fine, but could you just give me a second? I'll be right back." And your server would automatically wait, for whatever SMTP acknowledge delay it was set for, typically 30 seconds to 2 minutes, and then say to my machine, again "Hey, I've got a message for you, with a 12 Mb file attachment." and mine would say right back "Great, and I'll get with you to take it in just a half a second. Thanks for being patient." And your machine and my machine would keep this up, hopefully, for quite a while. If you were a spammer or someone trying to overload my machine, your machine would be caught in my machine's acknowledge behavior, and presumably, I'd be helping other mail sites on the Internet by keeping you busy for a long time, before you moved on to bother them. So thousands and thousands of servers around the internet, particularly on large commercial sites, are set up to teergrube now, and you are probably forcing your machine to fall into these "tar pits" pretty often.

Post your "attachment" files to an http or ftp server, and send links to their URL's (password protected directories if necessary) in your email, and you avoid this entirely.

And you get gold stars for good Netiquette.
posted by paulsc at 12:45 PM on September 28, 2006

For the sending files thing, dropsend is a pleasant, easy option. It has some integration with email - you can easily email a customer with the link to the dropsend file.
posted by matthewr at 1:56 PM on September 28, 2006

Joyent is worth taking a look at. It's tuned for small businesses.
posted by caek at 3:52 PM on September 28, 2006

We use Intermedia for hosted Exchange 2003, and love it.

Of course, we all use Windows Mobile 5 phones, so the over-the-air ActiveSync/Push Mail is a big selling point for us.
posted by Merdryn at 4:18 PM on September 28, 2006

We just switched over to google apps for business.

Spam went from 100+ pieces a day...

To 2.

Price is right too.
posted by filmgeek at 6:23 PM on September 28, 2006

You shouldn't send 15 MB attachments. It's much more efficient to put the files on a server and email the link. Changing your companies behavior on this now, before you grow and it gets out of hand, is going to save you bundles in bandwidth, storage media, and it will speed up email delivery times, too.
posted by Mr. Gunn at 7:48 PM on September 28, 2006

so far Google apps is by far the best mail hosting experience I have ever had. It has helped to sort of kinda know what I'm doing, but setting up 5 domains took me all of half an hour and the spam drop off was immediate. Best loss of privacy I ever spent.
posted by mwhybark at 8:23 PM on September 28, 2006

Follow-up: I looked into Google Aps, decided it was good for us, and convinced my boss to do it. It took her awhile to press the button, but once she did, she loved it! We all do! And now I'm a genius :-D Thanks AskMeta!
posted by ThePinkSuperhero at 9:04 AM on January 17, 2007 [1 favorite]