Rackspace 7.0 Provides Business Focused Email
by Bill Ives
Most email clients focus on the broad consumer market. Rackspace, a managed server and cloud hosting provider, offers email designed to address business email needs. I spoke with Kirk Averett, their Director of Products for email and applications. Many applications are moving to the cloud to save money. At the moment only small percentage of enterprises actually host their email externally. This could be one of the areas where cloud usage expands and Rackspace is targeting this expansion with its new Rackspace 7.0 email offering and its low price point ($1 a mail box a month).
Rackspace acquired Mailtrust in 2007 and rebranded the Noteworthy email platform as Rackspace Email adding new business oriented features. They now have over 1.2 million mail boxes and crossed the 15,000 customer mark this year. Some of the new features include right click for in-context options, a quick reply feature, improved foreign language handling, and improved support for Google Chrome Here is a sample email page.
Rackspace also completely rebuilt their calendar manager. They now offer support for multiple personal calendars and the ability to assign write access to a personal calendar to another user. They also work with iCal Calendar feeds now and have full compatibility with Outlook/Exchange invites. Here is their calendar interface.
You can also manage tasks as shown below.
Rackspace also offers a hybrid model, where companies can purchase hosted MS Exchange for executives who need the extra features and Rackspace Email for those who do not require them.
Kirk said that many small businesses get email bundled with their Internet service. However, they are quickly frustrated with the support and come to Rackspace as it has a reputation for excellent uptime and customer service. They also provide robust spam filtering and support attachments up to 50 MG, much greater than most ISPs.
Kirk said they also made user management easy for the business administrator. It is simple to add and remove users, as well as make aliases. Vacation settings are also handled under the same administration capability. It is also easy to synchronize your contacts on your laptop and mobile phone through the robust web mail capabilities. Here is a contact list.
Rackspace appears to be an excellent option to move your email to the cloud.
