What do you use for YOUR business email?

Krynn72

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Right now I'm just using the email services from HostGator that came with my website, but am looking for a webhost independent service to use. I'm not familiar at all with this process and am wondering what others do for your email. I want something thats a bit futureproof in case I change webhosts, employ someone who then needs an addy, etc.
 
I read your post wrong. Google apps for business (G suite) for us. I thought you meant a mailer program which would be Aweber or GetResponse for us.
 
Any reason why you would choose Google Apps over O365, or vise versa?

The Action Pack deal looks pretty enticing, especially with the discount. I assume that in the future, if I didn't want to renew the full action pack. I could just continue the O365 on its own?

Plus if I want to support O365 it will be good to learn how to migrate to it for when it comes up as a service request. Though I suppose the same could be said for Google Apps.
 
Any reason why you would choose Google Apps over O365, or vise versa?

The Action Pack deal looks pretty enticing, especially with the discount. I assume that in the future, if I didn't want to renew the full action pack. I could just continue the O365 on its own?

Plus if I want to support O365 it will be good to learn how to migrate to it for when it comes up as a service request. Though I suppose the same could be said for Google Apps.

My view might anger some as the Office 365 vs Google Apps battle lingers on lol, so I apologize in advance. IMO you should really learn both since there are lots of clients that use both. Also, it depends on your business model and how you make your money per se. By that I mean it breaks down into this:

Google Apps - Super easy to setup and administer. Very little issues. So little that it's 'harder' to sell/service as a tech as some customers can really do it themselves and you get Google enterprise support with your subscription. The way we use it we still support it for our clients so it's a huge win-win in that area for us. Solid, robust system. I like the Google mail philosophy waaaaay better than Microsofts approach. Labels vs folders, not dealing with PST files etc. Same calendar sharing and enterprise features but they are much simpler and and just seems so elementary to setup and support.

O365 - What can I say.... It's Microsoft Office / Outlook. So.... it's going to be used by a ton of clients. It's going to have the common Msoft issues that Outlook has always had which is both a blessing and a curse. It's a blessing if you support by the hour and all your clients have Msoft products across the board, you'll make more money. It's a curse if you use it yourself and your the one stuck with those issues.

There are tons of training videos etc, O365 is so Msoft like in terms of stability that there are a ton of companies dedicated to just supporting O365 issues. With Google apps, the needed support is almost laughable in comparison.

They both have their place of course and we do support both products daily so I certainly don't wish either one goes away any time soon as we are making money from both of them. But for our shop use and my own personal use it's GA all the way.

The real money maker is when you are doing the support for GA for clients. Administration stuff, calendar sharing, Google drive file / folder sharing etc. You wind up providing enterprise grade solutions that take minutes as its so simple, so your profit is pretty solid.

On the other hand, if most of your clients are using O365 then it may be a good idea to use it yourself so you'll be up to speed on it's features and be able to support it efficiently.
 
I've tried both O365 and Google Apps, and Google Apps wins by a landslide. O365 is complicated and full of bugs. Their website absolutely SUCKS and integrating it was difficult back when I first tried it. I can't STAND Outlook (the actual application that comes with Office). It's sucked for the last 20 years and I don't see that ever changing. Granted it's gotten better since 2013, but I fix Outlook problems all the time for my clients. I have no desire to fix my own Outlook problems.

I personally use a combo of the Mail app in Windows 10 and the Mail app on my iPhone with Google Apps. On any older Windows 7 machines I have, I just use the webmail interface. It sucks royally to pay $5/month for email, but such is life. It's better than GoDaddy's Workspace Email, which I used for many years. Unfortunately they're phasing it out and it sucked for mobile and was a pain to set up in email clients (and is totally incompatible with the new Windows 10 Mail app). Sure it was cheap (about $1/month), but it felt like I was back in 2003 so I decided to make the switch to Google Apps this year. I tried O365 a few years ago with GoDaddy and it sucked so bad that I went back to their Workspace Email (that's how freaking terrible it was!). But once I tried Google Apps I was hooked. It's simple and just works and it's easy to sign into different clients and apps. Of course it's a chore with Outlook, but so is virtually everything. Hence, why I don't use Outlook.
 
As above Microsoft Action Pack gives you 5 E3 licenses so i use this for my mail.

Majority of my business clients use outlook wity Exchange or office 365. As I do Office 365 migrations also its only fitting i use it too.

I have a couple using Google Apps and i am familiar in setting up ect.
 
Google Apps - Super easy to setup and administer. Very little issues. So little that it's 'harder' to sell/service as a tech as some customers can really do it themselves and you get Google enterprise support with your subscription. The way we use it we still support it for our clients so it's a huge win-win in that area for us. Solid, robust system. I like the Google mail philosophy waaaaay better than Microsofts approach. Labels vs folders, not dealing with PST files etc. Same calendar sharing and enterprise features but they are much simpler and and just seems so elementary to setup and support.

Well put @ComputerPro - And then there is the whole new wave of intertwined/connected apps with Google that Office has no comparison. MS spent so many years walling off their products while the Google landscape embraces interconnecting everything with ease. If your business model (or your awareness) doesn't include Google Business Apps, you really should research/rethink a few things
 
For 20 years...we've been supporting SMBs...so we've lived and breathed what we service.
Microsoft Exchange Server! In house!

We may soon take advantage of the free licenses you get as an O365 partner...and migrate to Office 365 E3.
But for now, we're still on Exchange.

Exchange has soooo many features that it seems >90% of people never know about ,let alone utilize. So...if you actually USE it...you may learn more about it, and that in turn may lead to educating clients about it....showing them how to use it, leading to more sales for you.

Sadly, most people just use Exchange like any other POP e-mail...just...basic e-mail.
 
For 20 years...we've been supporting SMBs...so we've lived and breathed what we service.
Microsoft Exchange Server! In house!

We may soon take advantage of the free licenses you get as an O365 partner...and migrate to Office 365 E3.
But for now, we're still on Exchange.

Exchange has soooo many features that it seems >90% of people never know about ,let alone utilize. So...if you actually USE it...you may learn more about it, and that in turn may lead to educating clients about it....showing them how to use it, leading to more sales for you.

Sadly, most people just use Exchange like any other POP e-mail...just...basic e-mail.

Same, we have an in house SBS 2011 Server
 
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