1&1 MailXchange review

The power of push
One area where MailXchange is different from many of its competitors is that the synchronisation is via a "push" technology and not the more traditional and easier to code "pull" technology.

Push means the web page should always display the current data without the user having to refresh the browser window, and this also extends to synchronisation with Windows Mobile smartphones.

This is achieved by installing a small app on the phone called 1&1 Sync. This ability to sync also extends to Outlook with the 1&1 Outlook connector; this can be handy by creating a local copy of the information on your desktop.

Conclusion
Although there are many competitive products and services out there, 1&1 has pitched the price for this at a very low £6.99 per user per month for one-to-four users, with discounts down to £3.99 per month for 25 users or more (all prices exc VAT). It's good value.

It has stiff competition from products like Microsoft Exchange, Kerio MailServer and Gordano Messaging Suite, though, which all offer web interfaces to their email and collaboration servers. And the functionality and flexibility of these is in many ways superior to MailXchange.

However, as MailXchange is a fully hosted solution there are none of the worries of setting up your own server, and the ability to link items together make this system very compelling. Plus, the system comes with proper service level agreements that any sensible business would require; many other online systems don't offer such assurances and so should not be considered for line of business applications.

It's this sort of detail that makes 1&1 MailXchange a viable business option. It has its limitations, but overall it's a versatile personal information and collaboration system particularly suited to the small and medium-sized business.

Author: Mark Newton