“You need to understand how your e-mail system is being used before you do a consolidation or migration,” echoes Bossi. When consolidating his four e-mail platforms, Bossi found real differences among user groups. Some frequently use features like public folders, for example. “You need to understand all of that to transmit the right requirements to the outsourcer,” he says.

You may also have some custom integration with other enterprise systems, such as order-taking systems, which get their input from e-mail, Bossi notes. For organizations that aren’t ready to make the leap to complete outsourcing, there’s an interim step: Have a managed service provider remotely monitor and control the e-mail servers in-house, says IDC’s Levitt. IBM, Hewlett-Packard and other consultancies have long offered this service.

Still, outsourcing e-mail will not work for everyone. The city of Seattle’s CISO, Michael Hamilton, has contemplated migrating his e-mail to an outside provider, but decided against it due to several challenges. The toughest one is the city’s use of Novell’s GroupWise e-mail server, which very few outsourcers support, he says. Another challenge is the high level of heterogeneity among city agencies, many of which have very specialized requirements. The police, for example, don’t want their data stored offsite, for security and privacy reasons.

But Hamilton did outsource his e-mail anti-malware operations to Postini to get that burden off his plate.

Plan Ahead
Enterprises considering e-mail outsourcing should think expansively, recommends Wu Zhou, a senior research analyst for network lifecycle services at IDC. As voice and data technologies merge, e-mail will morph into or become part of a unified messaging platform, she says. “Find the partner that can not only provide cost-effective outsourcing of e-mail but also work with you to grow the functionality.”

It makes sense to anticipate other e-mail needs when you outsource, agrees Adecco’s Bossi. For example, mobile messaging at Adecco is today split between Palm Treo and Research in Motion BlackBerry devices. But his outsourcer supports Microsoft gadgets too. So if and when his users want those devices, he’ll be covered. And he can let someone else handle the details.

Galen Gruman is a frequent contributor to CIO.