Network-based e-mail - Ready for prime time?

In the prior newsletter, we raised the question of whether the time is here – or past due – for moving e-mail from local PCs back to the network. This time we want to continue the discussion by looking at some of the key questions that need to be addressed.

Security: Of course, this is always the first question for any public e-mail services (such as Amazon). Is your "private" e-mail really private? In truth, our answer is "probably not." However, anything that has ever transited the Internet is likewise probably not truly private. In reality, any illusion of true security is probably just that – an illusion.

Data security: Yet another way of looking at "security." How difficult would it be for someone to hack into your public cloud-based e-mail? Given enough time and enough tries at a given account, the answer would be "not very." However, just to put this into perspective, what is the relative risk of someone hacking an online account vs. having a notebook computer (containing the same information) lost or stolen?

Private or public cloud: This is a tough one, and a lot depends on scale. For the SMB, the public services probably are quite appropriate. For larger shops, it's a more complex call. That said, we've seen numerous shops totally "outsourcing" e-mail to services like Google. This alleviates the necessity of having local servers, maintaining these servers, backing up on a regular schedule… This is basically the same as any other cloud application.

Storage availability: One of the major reasons years ago for moving to a PC-based service was that network storage was limited and expensive. Now, however, that's no longer a stumbling block. Now, however, even the free version of Gmail offers individuals over 7GB of storage (with a constantly incrementing counter.) And additional storage is available at an "almost free" price.

Compliance: A great question. And one that we'll be looking for your input on. However, our initial take is that compliance with various regulations can be handled once by the cloud-based organization and then applied for multiple customers. More on this to come.

Integrated interfaces and collaboration: Clearly, this is an area where we'll be seeing significant interest in the near future. For now, the services are looking "good." And we're eagerly awaiting checking out "Google Wave" as a look at the next generation.

Personalization: Right. You don't want to have your corporate image as [fill-in-the-blank]@gmail.com or [fill-in-the-blank]@yahoo.com. No problem. If it's a private cloud, then you still have your own servers. And even if it's a public cloud, it's trivial to personalize with your own domain name.

And this is only a starting point for this issue. For a continuation, we invite you to join our discussion on this topic at TECHNOtorials.Com.

Steve Taylor is president of Distributed Networking Associates and publisher/editor-in-chief of Webtorials. Jim Metzler is vice president of Ashton, Metzler & Associates.