It shouldn't be difficult to see that outsourcing can give a major boost to your company's productivity and free up time for your staff, but this is just one of the many ways that email outsourcing can save you money. In this section, we will discuss the various costs and cost reductions associated with email outsourcing.
The Obvious Costs
The most obvious costs associated with maintaining your own email are associated with the acquisition and maintenance of the necessary hardware. The email servers alone can run into the tens—and even hundreds—of thousands of dollars. The most basic messaging or email server will maintain all of the requisite components to function effectively and reliably for a small business. With plenty of hardware resources and disk space, a high-end PC that can be used as an email server will cost between $15,000 and $20,000. Dedicated servers running UNIX—systems normally used for larger businesses—can exceed $200,000. While these machines are exceptionally reliable, this is a cost that most small businesses are unwilling or unable to shoulder.
The biggest cost associated with maintaining in-house email relates to a set of technology called a "computing platform." This platform consists of personal computers on individual desks, network equipment, the LAN (Local Area Network) itself, printers, servers, and the software that runs it all. This infrastructure has to be maintained and funded, and this is the most significant—and obvious—source of expense.
