Email and Web Hosting - help!

[Guest]

Hi All,

Those who know me will remember that I launched head long into a business venture about 18 months ago with an old pal - to provide non medical care for older people in thier own homes - as a national company, with the help of our US parents.  (end of "setting the scene"!)

The business is going from strength to strength - to the point where we have outgrown our US hosting facility.

We need to host mail (urgently) over here and transfer the website later (4 - 6 weeks time).

Question is - can anyone recommend who is best placed to provide a mail hosting service and preferrably an ASP hosting service.  We are currently running around 50 mail accounts - need to be compliant with MS Outlook and all that.  We expect to be growing by around 6 - 8 users per month.

Our website needs to be dynamic and present us with the (local) ability to amend pages etc.

"My man" in our office is suggesting we use BT - but as a 25 year ex BT engineer and (later on) Senior Manager - this fills me with all sorts of horror! unless they have improved recently.

Any ideas?  If you need to chat further - I would be most grateful of your help - call me on 07814 624597 anytime.

Thanks

Paul.

[ChrisG]

I don't host anything to the scale that you're requiring, but Ive not had any problems at all with Fasthosts over the last couple of years.

They have a lot of different hosting / mail packages including hosting all your email for you on an Exchange Server in their datacentre so you get all the benefits of Exchange, Outlook web access, Exchange collaboration (sharing calendars etc), but without needing to know anything about supporting Exchange on your own server.

Chris

[gee_fin]

Shout for 1&1 from me...

[wacomuk]

my misses uses www.1and1.co.uk for her web site and emails, they seem good

[ChrisG]

Yep I also use 1&1 for another domain (just POP3 email), overall they're pretty good too but I did have a technical problem with their spam filtering a couple of years ago where it suddenly started blocking virtually all emails including legitimate ones, and the first numpty on the phone wouldnt accept that the problem was their end, kept insisting it was something Id changed.

[gee_fin]

I've got a couple of servers with 1&1 having previously used their smaller hosting packages. Their billing is their downfall - they won't accept direct debit and will cut you off with little warning if a card expires. You learn to keep on top of that pretty quick!

Their shared servers can be a little slow/overworked (hence why I moved to dedicated) if running database apps (e.g. shops/etc) as they do allow quite a lot of people to run on them at once.

The spam filtering was surprisingly average on default, it works, but didn't seem overly strong or particularly cumbersome, just average

Other than that, their support is generally   on both email and phone. And their admin/interfaces are too, very simple to understand and use, probably the best I've used from a hosting provider.

Overall I'd give 1&1 8/10, Fasthosts 7/10 and Rackspace 10/10 (although they're about 1000 times more expensive).

/blatant plug

If anyone on the WSCC is in need of email/database/webspace I can offer discounted rates on my AtomicRocketTurtle secured servers. Proper spam protection (a pet peeve of mine, so much so I've made it a mission and gone from 300+spam a day on my old Fasthosts/1&1 accounts to less than 3 a week on my own servers ). From as little as £5/month for 5Gb

[John Loudon - Sponsorship Liaison]

What about the likes of these people? I have been looking into for where I work. it saves the hassle of having your server and having to continually keep it maintained and up to date as the onus is someone elses.

John

[markboyce]

UK Web Solutions Direct

Have been very good at work.  All UK based people on the end of email or the telephone. No problem speaking with someone when I have needed to.

Cheers

Mark

[Guest]

Thanks for all the great suggestions guys - you have made one decision for me, which is not to add the server to my comms room here in Chester - get someone else to do it!

Mr Finn - I guess we need to talk - or at least you need to talk to my man Andy the Tech Head Guru - sat next to me at the moment.  Can I call you?  (need a number please )

Thanks again.

[gee_fin]

Can do, number is 07747 60 60 66. However, I think you said your need is for Exchange hosting, I'm afraid I don't offer MS/Exchange  

[John Loudon - Sponsorship Liaison]

But the people in my link do  

[ChrisG]

...as do Fasthosts and 1&1.

I guess if its only basic e-mail facilites are required that can be downloaded into Outlook, then I imagine a set of POP3 boxes from Gee will do that job for a lot less than an Exchange based solution, but if you need additional features like calendar sharing and centralised backup etc then youll need to look further than POP3

[gee_fin]

Yep, pop3/webspace/downloading to outlook/full Plesk backend/etc I can do. But if you want hosted Exchange services in a mission critical business environment I'd always go for the biggest player you can find  

[Guest]

Thanks guys - getting a tad technical on me there!!  Trying to balance the need to control costs (still a new company just about surfacing from "start-up") with the need to provide a scalable solution.  We aim to have in the region of 300 - 500 users within 3-4 years.  So cheap now isn't necessarily the way to go......?

Always problems - just want to get out in the sun and give the westy a blast.

[Guest]

One last question - I hope.

Is 20meg storage for email enough for about 50 users - using MS exchange??  This is what is on offer - and I have no idea whether this is big enough???

Thanks again