[nycbug-talk] A simple end-of-year poll

[George Rosamond]

On 12/28/10 16:57, Francisco Reyes wrote:
> George Rosamond writes:
>
>> Hosting email has got to be one of the most under-appreciated services.
>
> Agree, but market is what it is. Even google only charges $5/month and
> it is for some insane amount of space.
>
>> seconds over-latency ridden residential connections, then don't expect
>> to pay a lot.
>
> I think 2 to 5 per mailbox per month is the most people will be willing
> to pay regardless of how much space you give them. The only people that
> pay more than that are usually Microsoft exchange users and Lotus notes
> users.

Who knows.

I think the email provider market is too big with so many players that 
to say $2-5 per mailbox is "the most" is over-generalizing.

It's not like buying a Big Mac or a house in Florida with bad drywall.

>
>> If I hosted email, it would be uucp or hard copy print-outs delivered
>> by snail mail, with mailbox sizes 200 k max. And no SLA.
>
> That would be a hobby not a business, because you would have no
> customers. :-)

I get your sarcasm, but don't miss my point about it being thankless.

>> You have issues even though they winded down a while ago, and you
>> don't want to pay >$20 a month.
>
> Perceived value is just that.. what people perceive it to be.
> Unfortunately, for those trying to run a business on the email market,
> the price people are willing to pay for email is low.
>

Of course.  That's if you don't mind massive privacy issues bundled with 
that inexpensive package from Google.

<sarcasm>
I used to tell Bruno all the time to drop the privacy crap and just 
resell his customer email anonymized by AOL.
</sarcasm>

Now that's a cheap business model.

>> Stick to gmail or something.
>
> Even hosted gmail is cheaper than the price listed by LuxSci for 2
> accounts. LuxSci may be cheaper over more accounts, but I was looking
> for a small domain that only has 2 accounts.
>

Of course google is cheaper.  They can be.  They just want to built out 
their social link analysis data.

Search engines, social networking sites and data mining firms love to 
have paying customers or free "staff" creating data for them.

> Over the years I have had hosted email on many different companies and
> sadly at one point or another every one has had some growing pains and
> expericed large dowtimes; so I figure if no matter where I go there will
> be downtime, may as well find a good value.

Valid point.

>
> Currently I am leaning towards giving Maia mailguard a try and self host
> all my domains and if that goes well all my small business customers.

g