* Managed e-mail services have several pluses in their column
There are three basic ways to manage e-mail security defenses, such as anti-virus, anti-spam, secure messaging and other services: deploy software on your own hardware and operating system; install appliances that combine hardware, software and operating system in a single, rack-mounted box; or use a third-party managed service in which all of your messages are first routed through an off-site data center for processing and cleaning before delivery. Today we’ll focus on this last option.
Companies that offer managed services are doing very well. Providers like Postini, FrontBridge Technologies, MessageLabs and a host of others are gaining new customers and mailboxes, and this segment of the market is growing rapidly.
There are two key reasons for the success of the managed services market. First, the services are extremely easy to deploy. All that is necessary to initiate service is to modify the MX records of a domain, which can be completed within a few hours. There is no hardware or software to install, no significant IT staff investments have to be made, and the providers can eliminate the vast majority of viruses, spam, worms and other unwanted stuff quite effectively.
Second, if you examine the total cost of ownership for managed services vs. in-house solutions, a managed service can be less expensive to operate, although that is not always the case.
Another advantage of the managed-service approach is that these services can act as a sort of rudimentary disaster recovery system in the event of a failure of your messaging system – if your messaging servers go down, e-mail simply spools on the service provider’s servers until your messaging servers are back online. Those who send e-mail to your domain won’t encounter bounce-backs when your servers are down.
Obviously, the entire messaging security market is going to continue to grow – but I believe we may see the strongest growth in managed service providers over the next 12 to 18 months. A significant part of the market is warming to the idea of managed services. Although there continue to be (often unfounded) concerns over the long-term financial viability of some providers and there tends to be resistance to letting a third party have access to corporate message stores, very often this resistance can be overcome. Further, in a growing economy, IT staff are more difficult to find and retain, so many companies may simply decide that the best use of their IT staff members is in areas that provide additional value to the enterprise.
I’d like to get your thoughts on the future of managed service providers, particularly your attitudes toward using them. Please drop me a line at mailto:michael@ostermanresearch.com
