We recently switched our corporate email to a hosted Exchange solution from AppRiver. It happens to be down right now (which is why I have time to blog), but this is still a positive review. Frankly, getting this Exchange server from AppRiver and having their spam filtering is one of the best things we’ve ever done.
For something like $125 per month we get 10 accounts and more GB of storage than we need. Their stuff integrates with Outlook, and they have a web version of Outlook that blows away any web-based email interface I’ve ever seen. Everything is synchronized so I can check email in Outlook from my laptop, jump on a friend’s machine and send an email from the web-based interface, and then check email, delete some emails, and send an email from my Motorola Q and I don’t have to worry about the accounts getting out of whack. Everything is synchronized as though I were doing it all from the same machine. And all my tasks, calendar items, notes, etc. that I use in Outlook get synchronized as well.
But that’s just Exchange, and doesn’t have anything to do with AppRiver, per se. What AppRiver provides is some great spam filtering. Before AppRiver I was filtering all my spam manually to make sure I didn’t miss things, and I would guess I spent 20-30 minutes each day doing that. Now I spend about 2-3 minutes skimming the spam report to make sure there aren’t any false positives. Every once in a while there are, so I add them to the safe sender list and then they don’t get flagged again. As far as actual spam making it through, I would say it’s about 1 in 1,000 that gets through, and the false positives are about 1 in 5,000.
AppRiver makes it a cinch to manage the Exchange server, your accounts, and the spam filter settings. It’s really, really easy, and I only wish I had signed up for something like this several years ago.
Yes, our server does happen to be down at the moment, but I sent in a support request and got a phone call from a live person who knew what they were talking about within 60 seconds, telling me that it was a known issue and they were working on it. I also got emails back. Of course I don’t like it when things go down, but everyrthing does go down and some time, and when it does happen the way the company reacts says a lot about their competency and attitude. I’ve had other hosting companies…well, let’s not go there. It makes me tired just thinking about it. Suffice it to say I’ve been impressed with AppRiver’s support. And apparently I’m not the only one. Rackspace selected AppRiver last year as their chosen provider of spam filtering services.
They have a 30-day trial, so if you’re interested, just try it out. Just beware because you’ll probably get hooked once you use it.
