Google Apps vs. Rackspace

Is Google Apps a Good Email Provider For Your Business?

With the growing importance of reliable email hosting, email providers are finding themselves under the magnifying glass. As more and more companies jump on the email hosting bandwagon, we find ourselves with more options and more competitive prices, but at what cost?

In this article, we take a look at our current email provider - Rackspace, and compare it to Google Apps Premier - Google's business email offering.

Google Apps Gmail Premier vs. Rackspace Email

Our initial review of Google Apps (specifically, their Gmail email component, the Premier edition for businesses) has led us to conclude that while Google Apps is a solid service and is easy to use, there are a few things that are keeping us from making the switch:

1. Lack of phone support. With Rackspace, there's a dedicated support team standing by 24/7. Google offers email support beginning with the "premier" edition, but phone support is only available for "service unavailable" emergencies. That means no help setting up your wireless device or having someone talk you through optimizing your spam filters, etc. We're also unsure of how reliable the email support is as we haven't had time to do a thorough test.
2. IP reputation and management - while Google has "IP address whitelisting" (ensures that emails you send to people don't end up in the spam box for popular ISPs (Internet Service Providers such as Time Warner, Comcast, AOL, etc.)), they don't have a dedicated IP reputation and management team.
3. Privacy - this is more of a subjective criterion, but nevertheless one we feel is important. Just like it's best to keep separate accounts in the financial world (credit card, checking, investment accounts, etc.), we feel it's best not to put all your eggs in one basket in the Internet world. Google already provides our Analytics service and controls how the majority of the world's websites receive traffic - which gives them a world of information on our business. For them to also have access to emails, given all the privacy flags the company has been raising lately, makes us hesitant to share more information with them.

That being said, Google is known for their user-friendly apps and services, and we hear good things about their calendar integration. And their pricing is more competitive.

If you decide you can live without the phone/ tech support and have a firm grasp of your email setup, it might be worth giving Google a shot.

Before you make the leap, however - you might want to read an article on our site dedicated to privacy reform addressing Google's email privacy.