OT: Outsourced services

[DAve]

Alex Broens wrote:
> On 3/25/2009 11:56 PM, Paul Welsh wrote:
>> Thought it was worth mentioning for anyone who doesn't know that Google
>> bought Postini last year and are offering outsourced mail scanning for 
>> $12
>> per user per year.  For $25 they'll archive all mail for a year.  For $45
>> they'll archive for 10 years.  
>> http://www.google.com/postini/compare.html.
>> The archiving will include internal mail for those running certain 
>> products
>> like Exchange Enterprise.
>>
>> I've used MailScanner on my own dedicated server for years.  Recently I
>> spent some time setting up 2 x MailScanner servers for the company I work
>> for (80 - 100 people).  However, when I found out about Google's 
>> offering I
>> suggested we switch.  The pricing and the archiving facility made it a no
>> brainer.  We're going through one of Google's partners so there is a 
>> setup
>> and annual support fee but it's a few hundred quid.  The sterling pricing
>> for the actual service is equivalent to the dollar pricing.
>>
>> We used to use MessageLabs which used to cost over GBP40 per user per 
>> year
>> so the Google service is about a fifth of the price.
>>
>> I was talked through the Postini web interface yesterday and it seems 
>> highly
>> configurable.  So configurable, in fact, that I'm glad we are spending 
>> a bit
>> more to get some support from people we can phone.
>>
>> Presuming that the service works well in blocking spam and viruses, I 
>> really
>> think SMEs have to think very carefully before installing their own mail
>> scanning server.  Of course, for big organisations where money is 
>> tight and
>> user numbers are high then $12 per user per year is still more expensive.
>> For a company like the one I work for though, the time taken to 
>> maintain our
>> own mail servers is just not worthwhile at these prices.
> 
> Good your bosses feel safe having corp's mail in hands of the largest 
> search engine and data mining company in the world.
> 
> I know my boss wouldn't want that.

+1

Looking at the amount of spam that comes from Google owned services I 
would say they could claim greatly improved spam/virus catching just by 
blocking their own traffic.

DAve


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