What this means for a small firm is that a business-class email solution is essentially a one-stop shop. There is no need to use an online web client and address book - which are often lacking in functionality - to control their business-to-business, or business-to-customer relations. There is no need to use a standalone calendar in a bespoke application; no need to have a lonely, underused task manager, nor any need to remotely connect to any of these services as individual entities outside of the office.
The notion of a one-stop shop, or all-encompassing managed email solution, should strike a small business as a compelling proposition - particularly considering the exhaustive challenges that firms face today.
Security
Enterprise security is one of the top reasons why migrating systems to a single, managed email exchange server (hosted in a secure data centre) is popular with businesses. Exchange servers - such as those by provided by the likes of Microsoft - provide multi-layered security; employing anti-spam filtering before it reaches an individual's inbox, helping to guard against spam and phishing threats.
Action like this is necessary, as the number of unique phishing scams and amount of malware has of late spiraled out of control. According to the Anti-Phishing Working Group, the number of unique phishing sites detected in a single month hit an all-time high of 56,859 in February. Furthermore, more than six million unique malware strains were identified during the first three months of 2012.
Removing such threats proactively minimises the chances that small or medium-sized business (SMB) employees will have their accounts hijacked - a nightmare scenario for any company, no matter what size.
Encryption often comes as standard too, across communications both inside and outside the server network. This means the content of messages, tasks and all other information sent is near impenetrable, even if an outsider were to catch a stray email data packet.
While free email services provide a degree of security to some extent - including some of the aforementioned features - they are unlikely to be as robust or versatile as a business email solution.
Remote access
Working away from the office and using personal devices to access company data are trends that are fast gaining ground in the business landscape. However, while many employers are keen to embrace it, few are able to do so with their current IT infrastructure.
For example, a recent study by SolarWinds confirms that while many companies are willing to embrace bring your own device (BYOD) to work initiatives, nearly two-thirds don't have the appropriate tools to manage this.
It comes as another study by Juniper Research predicts that the number of employee-owned smartphones and tablets used in the enterprise will more than double by 2014, reaching 350 million.
Putting two and two together shows that a trend is emerging and with benefits such as increased productivity and reduced overheads to be had, it makes sense that SMBs would want to roll out BYOB/remote working solutions to their operations.
It is the security of these services that is holding many back. Free cloud storage-solutions may be convenient and satisfactory for general users, yet they do not provide the security that is needed in an enterprise, meaning another solution - like a managed email exchange server - is far more appropriate.
Control
Ultimately a business-class email exchange is about putting control into the hands of the SMB. This control could range from the kinds of features that an employer wants to make available to its networked staff, such as shared calendars or documents, to the amount of space they require to host this information.
The cloud is increasingly looking like the platform in which SMBs want to anchor their future email and organisational operations; specifically because of the aforementioned benefits in security, remote access, flexible storage and collaboration.
According to a recent SpamTitan poll, half of 2,500 SMB customers worldwide seem to agree. The survey respondents said they expected to leverage cloud computing for cost savings, while 44 per cent revealed that they had plans in place to move key applications such as email filtering and storage to the cloud.
Considering the benefits, it's easy to see why.
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