The title of the report, “Should Your e-mail Live In The Cloud? A Comparative Cost Analysis,” is actually somewhat misleading. The cloud implies a diffuse network of servers that hold partially redundant copies of information. Some of the services examined by the report don’t necessarily offer that sort of setup, although the report frequently refers to any off-site service as “the cloud.”

Semantics aside, Forrester surveyed over 50 IT workers at major enterprise companies to see how they handle e-mail, contacts, and calendaring services. They also discussed options and costs with 21 vendors of these services, and created some rough estimates of how much each portion of the various services cost.

One of the things they discovered is that the business community is largely unaware of the costs of running an e-mail account. Many of those surveyed gave guesses from $2 to $11 per user, although a detailed accounting showed that the costs were often several times that (Forrester came up with $25.18 per month, compared with $8.47 for Gmail). Part of the problem is that costs are often split among several cost centers, with software licenses part of a different department’s budget from the salaries of the people that support it. In some cases, the e-mail system was running on older hardware that had initially been bought for a different purpose and had been depreciated.

Despite the confusion, a lot of companies realize that e-mail has become expensive for two simple reasons: spam and malware. Nearly half of those surveyed were evaluating off-site solutions because e-mail costs had risen, while another 30 percent were performing the evaluation as part of an upgrade or service consolidation process. Fully 85 percent of these companies were leaning towards moving some of the services off-site.

The biggest reason for doing this seemed to be so that someone else could deal with staying on top of spam and malware; over half of those surveyed were planning on implementing a hybrid system where an external service filtered mail on its way into and/or out of the company’s internal servers. Reasons cited include the challenges of staying on top of the threats and up-to-date with the software, as well as the resource-intensive nature of combating mal-mail. Another 30 percent were leaning towards a complete outsourcing of the service, presumably in part because of these costs.

The author of the report calculated the monthly costs for the components of various systems, such as storage and client software. The biggest cost was clearly archiving, which is often legally required for a lot of positions. Beyond that, the software and filtering costs all came in at roughly 10 to 15 percent of the costs when they’re needed—off-site services, for example, eliminate separate purchases of server and filtering software, and lower staff costs in exchange for a monthly subscription. The overall conclusion is that any company with an employee count of under 15,000 would probably benefit from using off-site services.

The two examples of actual cloud services, Microsoft’s Exchange Online and Google Apps for Business, came out significantly ahead. Exchange Online provided significantly lower costs until somewhere above 30,000 seats, while Google Apps’ monthly cost consistently came in at half the cost of others, in part because its subscription cost is so low, and in part because the “client software” is a free web browser.

The author of the report cautions that there are a lot of variables to consider, such as how often the company adds and removes users, the frequency of large attachments, and the archiving requirements. Still, the results make it clear that Microsoft is now undercutting most of other services available, including those that rely on Exchange itself. But Google has managed to significantly undercut Microsoft. Although its solution is nowhere near as integrated as Exchange, an increasing percentage of the workforce is getting comfortable with managing their life and e-mail through a web browser.

Original URL: http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20090108-report-gmail-about-one-third-as-expensive-as-hosted-e-mail.html

“Gmail fans have been building unofficial extensions to spice up their inboxes for a while, but up ’til now themes haven’t been an integral part of Gmail,” said Gmail engineer Annie Chen in a blog post. “We wanted to go beyond simple color customization, so out of the 30 odd themes we’re launching today, there’s a shiny theme with chrome styling, another one that turns your in-box into a retro notepad, nature themes that change scenery over time, weather driven themes that can rain on your mailbox, and fun characters to keep you in good company.”

Google’s enterprise customers, however, are allowed no such levity: Gmail themes are not available to Google Apps users, a Google spokesperson said.

Google’s personalized home page, iGoogle, has had themes for over a year.

To apply a new theme, select the Settings link in Gmail and click on the Themes tab. Those who don’t have such a tab yet should see one in a few days, as the Gmail update propagates across Google’s servers.

Gmail has been the focus of much attention from Google lately. Last week, Google added voice and video chat to Gmail. About three weeks ago, Gmail gained the ability to send and receive SMS messages, though Google temporarily withdrew that feature in order to fix a show-stopping bug.

Just last month, Google launched seven features for Gmail: Gmail Gadgets, emoticons for messages, Gmail for mobile version 2.0, Canned Responses, contact manager improvements, advanced IMAP controls, and Mail Goggles.

Original URL: http://www.informationweek.com/news/internet/google/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=212100915

Google won’t disclose numbers, but the company says that spam attempts, as a percentage of e-mail that’s transmitted through its Gmail system, have waned over the last year. That could indicate that some spammers have gotten discouraged and have stopped trying to get through Google’s spam filters.

Other experts disagree with Google, pointing out that overall spam attempts continue to rise. By most estimates, tens of billions of spam messages are sent daily. Yet for most users, the amount of spam arriving in their inboxes has remained relatively flat, thanks to improved filtering.

Brad Taylor is on the front lines of the war on spam. He has served as the chief watchdog of Google’s spam filter since 2004, when Gmail first launched. His history with spam goes back much further, though: He’s been fascinated with it since 1994, when he received his first spam e-mail at a work account. Before he joined Google, he worked at an anti-spam startup.

Taylor denies he’s obsessed with junk mail, but his actions speak otherwise: For his own amusement, he Googles the gobbledygook at the bottom of spam messages to see where the text comes from. (Some are from Harry Potter books, he says. He also found one that was an English translation of a Russian science-fiction novel).

“It’s fun,” he says of catching spammers. “Sometimes I think, ‘Oh, wow, that guy’s really clever.’”

The chase may be exciting, but Taylor’s real dream is to return e-mail to the “pristine experience it used to be.”

Chenxi Wang, an analyst at Forrester Research, scoffs at the idea that spam attempts could be on the decline.

“I’m seeing that the overall trend is up,” Wang says. “We’re not seeing a drastic increase, though. And we’re also seeing an increase of targeted spam instead of blanket spam that hits everybody in a large population. Today, for instance, you see spam messages on saving (on) prescription drugs targeted to seniors.”

For its part, Yahoo, too, says the overall amount of spam transmitted is on the rise, but the percentage of spam that reaches its users’ inboxes is down. (Yahoo would not disclose specific numbers.)

Regardless of the overall spam attempts, David Daniels, vice president of Jupiter Research, predicts the number of spam messages that actually reach a typical inbox will remain roughly flat over the next three years. And for most people, that’s what really matters.

“We’re forecasting that the number of spam messages that annually reach the average inbox will hit 4,351 in 2007. For 2010, we think that number will essentially be flat at 4,403. The growth will be very, very small,” Daniels says.

There are a couple of reasons for the lack of growth in spam deliveries. For one, e-mail providers like Google, Yahoo, AOL and Microsoft’s Hotmail use sophisticated filtering algorithms that are constantly updated based on spam reports from individual users. Google says it can delete all instances of a single spam message across the Gmail network in seconds.

New anti-spam technologies are also always under development, and there are already countless anti-spam services and technologies available to consumers, including disposable e-mail addresses.

It’s by no means a perfect system, though. And spammers are, if nothing else, persistent.

In a bizarre twist, Daniels thinks that instead of receiving spam offers from penny-stock pushers, mailboxes will increasingly be filled with marketing messages that we choose to receive, such as promotional e-mails from a favorite clothing store or a bank. He thinks the average number of messages from marketers that individuals receive annually will grow from 2,715 in 2007 to 3,335 in 2010.

“We expect people to spend as much time on e-mail as they have, but we think people will receive more e-mail from legitimate marketers. So there will be more competition to get consumers’ attention in the inbox, but it will be more like competition between The Gap and J.C. Penney as opposed to The Gap and a Viagra salesman.”

Original URL: http://www.wired.com/techbiz/it/news/2007/11/google_spam

Mark Crispin, an often outspoken purist when it comes to e-mail implementations, had a typically-for-him dubious reaction to the announcement of Gmail’s added support for his protocol.

“I am very pleased that Gmail intends to adopt IMAP,” he says. (Note his word choice: “intends.”) “I feel that their current server should be considered to be a ‘work in progress’ and not as a viable ‘ready for prime time’ IMAP server.”

Crispin says if he were to rate Google’s current implementation of IMAP, it would be “quite damning.”

“The consequences of the current server being presented as a completed product would be far worse than their not doing IMAP at all.”

Google announced Oct. 24 that it would add support for IMAP to Gmail, one of the most-requested enhancements to its massively popular web-based mail service. Gmail, like similar services from Microsoft and Yahoo, has previously only used the more popular — but much less useful — POP protocol.

As with many things Google, Gmail’s IMAP implementation is not quite finished. It lacks a few important features, and in our initial tests, we found it to be painfully slow.

When asked to comment on Crispin’s criticism, the Gmail team offered an oblique response.

“Our primary focus is on our users and the user experience,” a Google spokesperson says, “and we’re focused on building the features that are most important to our users. We’ll be updating our IMAP implementation as we go, in response to how our users use it and what they request.”

However, even non-compliant support for IMAP is encouraging to users like Nancy McGough, who maintains a list of IMAP e-mail providers, and shares in the frustration of seeing the 22-year-old protocol so marginalized. McGough was losing hope earlier this year. She posted on comp.mail.imap: “My guess is that (Google, Yahoo and Microsoft) will not (support IMAP). My prediction is that they will support annotating messages and that will be another step towards the death of IMAP.”

But now it seems likely instead that Gmail’s role as a trendsetter, as well as the proliferation of mobile e-mail, will give IMAP the boost it deserves. Although McGough, a self-described “privacy nut,” distrusts Google’s motives — “They want to profile you,” she says — the latest move gives her hope for the future of the medium.

“Now that Gmail is supporting IMAP, I predict that Yahoo Mail and Microsoft will, too,” she says.

With POP mail, you’re responsible for keeping copies of your messages on your own computer. If you have more than one computer, or a mobile device, you have to manually synchronize everything — or, more commonly, just live with a disorderly array of inboxes. “I’ll just forward that to myself at work” is the battle cry of the POP mail user, a phrase which makes IMAP devotees shake their heads in pity.

With IMAP, everything lives in perfect sync on the server. Flag a message as “to-do” on one machine and the change is reflected everywhere else simultaneously. In an era of mobile devices, POP is a sadly inadequate relic.

E-mail providers have been loath to adopt the superior protocol, in part because it requires a significant storage commitment on the provider’s side. With POP, on the other hand, the user carries the burden of keeping all the mail locally.

For ad-driven web-based e-mail like Gmail, there’s another hitch. “Companies are worried that, because IMAP syncs so well, users will turn to mail clients rather than the web interface, which means a drop in advertising revenue,” says Keith Coleman, product manager of Gmail.

It’s a reasonable fear, and Google deserves an optimistic round of applause for taking the leap.

IMAP is unquestionably miles better than POP, but McGough’s hopes extend further.

“We need e-mail messages to be linkable, annotatable and access-controlled,” she says. “Basically we need all our e-mail in a wiki with multiple levels of access control (private, various groups and public). I think that’s going to happen soon. I’ll be brave and say within a year!”

Original URL: http://www.wired.com/software/webservices/news/2007/10/imap

Name: jim mcconnell
Email: jimmcconnellcdn@hotmail.com
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But an Ocean County man recently got an e-mail with a darker twist: Gimme your money, and I’ll cancel the contract someone put out to kill you.

Harry E. Whitworth, 72, of the Whiting section of Manchester Township, opened his e-mail Tuesday to find a curious screed supposedly from a man named Eddy.

“I know that this may sound very surprising to you but it’s the situation,” the e-mail began. “I have been paid some ransom in advance to terminate you with some reasons listed to me by my employer.”

The price to call off the hit: $8,000 — half of which is to be paid up front as a sign of good faith. Sort of.

The e-mail also warned him not to tell friends or relatives, since they might be part of the plot to kill, too.

“I kind of knew it was a scam,” said Whitworth, a retired accountant who lives with his wife in a senior citizen development. “The prosecutor’s office came over to see me and asked if I had been involved in anything in the past that might have caused this to happen.”

Whitworth did an Internet research that found someone has been running a similar scam in Arizona, with nearly identical e-mails full of typographical errors and misspellings.

The e-mailer promises to send the recipient a videotape of “his employer” putting out the contract on the recipient’s life.

But there were no instructions on how to comply with the demand for cash, and no timetable on when it had to be paid.

Capt. Michael Mohel, a spokesman for the Ocean County Prosecutor’s Office, said the case remains under investigation but declined further comment.

The FBI received 115 complaints of similar e-mails reaching people across the country in less than a month last winter, according to its website. The e-mails vary only in the amount of money demanded, ranging as high as $80,000.

Some even incorporate personal information about the recipient that is widely available from online databases, the FBI said.

Original URL: http://www.usatoday.com/tech/news/…/spam_N.htm

Today about 150 engineers at chipmaker Intel will kick off “Zero E-mail Fridays.” E-mail isn’t forbidden, but everyone is encouraged to phone or meet face-to-face. The goal is more direct, free-flowing communication and better exchange of ideas, Intel principal engineer Nathan Zeldes says in a company blog post.

E-mail-free Fridays already are the norm at cell carrier U.S. Cellular (UZG) and at order-processing company PBD Worldwide Fulfillment Services in Alpharetta, Ga.

Prominent techies are tackling the problem individually by declaring “e-mail bankruptcy” — deleting or archiving an entire in-box and starting over. Among them: prominent tech bloggers Jeff Nolan, Michael Arrington and Vanessa Fox, and venture capitalist Fred Wilson.

E-mail overload is caused by the sheer volume of messages zipping around the globe. Each day, about 39.7 billion person-to-person e-mails, 17.1 billion automated alerts, and 40.5 billion pieces of spam (unsolicited commercial e-mail) are sent worldwide, researcher IDC says. White-collar workers often receive 140 messages a day, executive coach Marsha Egan says.

E-mail can be a useful communication tool, and people who write a lot of it are more likely to receive it, IDC tech analyst Mark Levitt says. But it can quickly get out of hand.

“I didn’t even have time to figure out where to start,” says Edward O’Connor, a Web developer from San Diego who declared e-mail bankruptcy two weeks ago. O’Connor had about 750 messages dating back three years, almost all of which needed a reply. “I was completely overwhelmed,” he says.

Egan says even the busiest e-mailers can, with care, keep control of their in-boxes. Her tips:

• Don’t use e-mail to avoid unpleasant tasks. “I couldn’t believe people who had never talked to each other but worked in the same office,” says Scott Dockter, CEO of PBD. Dockter started e-mail-free Fridays about a year-and-a-half ago. Since then, the number of messages his 400 employees send has dropped by about 75%.
• Don’t constantly check for new messages. It can take four minutes to refocus on work after checking an e-mail, Egan says. Jay Ellison, chief operating officer of U.S. Cellular, estimates that his 7,000 employees spend about 1½ hours a day on their in-boxes. E-mail-free Fridays give them more time to solve customers’ problems, he says.
• Respond to important messages first — even if they’re difficult. Less-pressing issues can wait until a free moment, Egan says.

Original URL: http://www.usatoday.com/tech/…/email_N.htm