Yes, your customers can use hotmail, yahoo mail or even ZDNet mail for their hosted e-mail, but it might not be a wise move. After all, free e-mail services are as far beyond accountability as the moon is from Earth.
When your customers want to get serious about e-mail, you have two options: Install an internal systemââ,¬"which can be time consuming and costlyââ,¬"or turn to a serious, carrier-grade, hosted e-mail solution. In this article, we'll discuss the latter.
Making money from mail
One way to e-mail hosting profitability is to enter the mail outsourcing business like such companies as Commtouch, Critical Path and Electric Mail Company. Typically, those types of businesses provide mail services to other service providers like ISPs or ASPs, or directly to corporate customers. According to a forthcoming report by Ferris Research, a market and technology analysis house specialising in messaging, outsourcing e-mail will remain a rapidly growing business because of customer IT staff shortages and hosted e-mail's reduced costs.
Another path is simply to add hosted mail services to your menu of ISP or internal mail services. While it may be impossible to make those services separate billing-line items to your customer, you should be able to increase your overall billing rate by delivering improved e-mail capabilities.
