Clients are an important factor to get
right because user satisfaction (and the
number of calls to the Help desk) is largely
determined by user interaction with the
server through the client. Gmail’s standard
web-based UI is simple and robust, but it
could only be loved by its developers and their mothers. The biggest shock for users
new to Gmail is that Gmail’s UI is devoid
of the traditional folders used to organize
email. Google’s perspective is that you don’t
need folders to organize email because you
can search for and find any message very
fast. Regardless, it does take time for users
to figure out how best to use Gmail.
Gmail supports POP3 and IMAP4 access
so you can connect other clients including Outlook 2007, Outlook 2003, and Outlook
Express if you don’t like the web interface.
I prefer to use the Windows Mail client
provided with Windows Vista to connect to
Gmail, and this solution works well, though an occasional glitch causes the server to
lose client credentials. For a comprehensive
discussion about using Microsoft clients
with Gmail, see my recent article “Connect
Microsoft Email Clients to Gmail,” InstantDoc ID 99782.
A Hybrid Approach
You might consider combining approaches
to best meet user needs. A hybrid approach
means deploying inhouse email for users
who need a full feature set and deploying
email as a service for users who need only
the ability to send and receive messages and
use a calendar. However, you still have as
many factors to consider when moving to a
hybrid approach as when you migrate from
one email system to another:
Interoperability. A Google Docs user
with a Gmail account must be able to open
and view a Microsoft Word attachment
sent by an Exchange user, make changes to
embedded tables while preserving the format,
and send it back to the Exchange user.
Migration. You should be able to move
user data from one environment to another,
including transferring data from a legacy
email system.
Portabiility. You should be able to transfer
user mailboxes between all of the email
systems deployed in the enterprise (including
legacy systems) without data loss. Ideally,
there should be a highly automated
process to move mailboxes.
Compliance. Users who must comply
with legislative or regulatory requirements
should be assigned to an email service that
can support this need. Exchange of information
between both of the email services
must comply with these regulations.
e-discovery. You need to capture and
archive messages that flow between the
email services to meet e-discovery requirements.
Security. Both of your email systems
should support common methods to sign
and encrypt messages.
Directory. The email systems should
share a common directory that people can
use to validate email addresses, check organizational
information, and so on. Common
distribution lists (groups) should also be
available.
Service management. It’s relatively easy
to commit to a Service Level Agreement
(SLA) for email that’s managed inhouse but
harder when responsibility for the delivery
and availability of the service is moved “into
the cloud.” It’s even more complex when you
have different service providers managing
different email services. It’s possible that a
company might have to upgrade its Internet
access if it switches network traffic from predominantly
internal access to email servers
to exclusive access to cloud-based servers,
or a mixture of both.
Outsourced Hosting
With outsourced hosting, a customer contracts
with an outsourcing provider to run
the email application in the provider’s data
center. For example, if you elect to use
Exchange, Outlook clients access email over
the Internet using RPC over HTTPS (aka
the Outlook AnyWhere feature in Exchange
2007) and network proxies direct client traffic
from the customer network across the
Internet to the provider’s data center. The
advantage of outsourcing is that you purchase
an email service at a known cost for as
many mailboxes as required. You don’t have
to worry about systems administration, software
or hardware upgrades, capacity planning,
management and monitoring, and all of the other work required keeping an email
system running smoothly. An email hosting
solution can also support hybrid systems
and deliver both full-function and basic
email to different user communities within
the same company.
Buying email from a cloud-based service
offers the promise of lower cost but
the potential loss of some functionality.
However, it’s possible to reduce cost while
preserving functionality by outsourcing
email to a provider who offers full-function
products (i.e., Exchange) delivered from the
Internet at a predictable cost. Many service
providers offer hosted Exchange, chiefly
for small-to-midsized businesses (SMBs),
and they typically use the same kind of
infrastructure that Microsoft has built for
its email-as-a-service solution. What’s different
is the combination of outsourcing
the service with Internet access. Traditional
outsourcing runs applications such as email
as part of a customer’s IT infrastructure or in
the service provider’s data center with dedicated
network access for clients who wish
to connect to the service. Because Exchange
2007 is more flexible than its predecessors,
hosting based on this platform is now the
standard for outsourcing companies who
use the Microsoft platform.
What Should Your Company Do?
The advent of email as a service is just
another change you need to take into
account as you consider how to deliver
email to users in the future. A simple fivestep
approach can help to crystallize the
discussion about email and prepare you
to balance demands from different constituencies
in your company. For example,
users will be interested in large mailboxes
that they see available from Google while
the CIO will want to restrict costs of deployment,
operations, and support.
1. Don’t panic. If your current system
is based on outdated software that will no
longer be supported, now is a good time
to consider options and plan for early
action. On the other hand, if you’ve recently
upgraded to the latest software release on
new hardware, you’ll want to realize value
from this investment and not change anytime
soon.
2. Know what you have today. Understand
your current email infrastructure,
from the basic hardware and software to clients and add-on products. Assess the
benefits and drawbacks of the current email
system and compare it against the potential
benefits of a new email system. You also
need to understand how the email system
is used today including aspects such as
traffic volume, patterns (internal versus
external, daily peaks, weekend use), user
types (roaming, office, executive, basic), and
numbers, as well as the dependencies that
exist with other parts of the infrastructure
such as the enterprise directory.
3. Cost the change. Even an upgrade to
a new version of your current email system
incurs some cost. You need to understand
how much short-term and long-term investment
is required for the move. The cost categories
that should be considered include
- Transition—what work needs to be
done to move from one email system to
another?
- Migration of user data, system data, and
applications
- Operations and monitoring
- Possible need for new software and
hardware
- Support (clients and server)
- Network—your current network is
probably designed to handle the load
generated by clients to internal servers,
but can it handle connectivity if you
switch to consuming services from the
Internet?
- Add-on products such as antispam,
antivirus, mobile devices, and fax connectors
4. Involve users. If you decide that
moving to a new service is a good idea,
test the user experience with a variety
of people so that they understand the
advantages and disadvantages of moving.
Get user input: Some esoteric scheduling
feature that involves multiple calendars
might be unimportant to you but critical
to them.
5. Have a Plan B. Before making a major
change in your email strategy, you should
know what to do if the change doesn’t work.
For example, let’s assume that you plan to
move 10 percent of the user population to
email as a service. Have a plan in place if and when users complain about missing
features, network latency, client interfaces,
or anything else. The plan may call for you
to back out of the new system or specify how
to make changes (including any additional
costs) to improve the system so that it meets
user expectations.
Making Your Decision
Although SaaS makes it easy to buy and use
a service such as email, it doesn’t make the
decision-making process any easier. In fact,
it can complicate matters. But equipped
with the information you’ve gained, you will
now be able to make a data-driven rather
than emotion-driven plan for future email
services.
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