Re: [cobalt-users] Webbased Email

[Jeff Lasman <jblists@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

At 10:13 AM 1/13/00  PowerClicks wrote:

> > Question is:
> > Is Webbased Email possible on RAQ2+?
> > Which program should I use?
>
> of course. There are plenty of cgi solutions which run fine on raq2. Some
> examples:
>
> http://alias-mail.com

Their order-form page seems to have more reasons not to order than reasons 
to order <frown>.

> http://www.mailnow.co.uk

This looks good, and I've gotten quick and friendly responses from the 
company when I sent an email with some questions (the page was a bit hard 
for me to understand).

If I didn't already have an NT-based solution in place 
(<www.mailtraqna.com> for which I'm the western-hemisphere distributor).

> also http://www.joydesk.com/ which has a special raq2 package version (but,
> in my mind, pricing is completely out of hand)

In general, if they're afraid to put the price on the website, it's too 
expensive <smile>.

> > What are the pros and cons for this kind of
> > software?
>
> Pros: works on YOUR server:
> - you keep control of everything.
> - you own YOUR userbase
> - you get to keep 100% of advertising
> >...<stuff snipped from middle>...
> Cons: works on YOUR server:)
> - the no1 problem is abuse: people forging your domain once they find out
> you are in the email biz. You will get tens of thousands of returned email
> from the larger spams, and hundreds of complaints. This WILL blow your
> server (raq2 or other) and often break the scripts that have to parse
> through incoming mail. This will make your users very unhappy.
> >...<stuff snipped from middle>...


> Bottom line:
>
> If your site is to focusing mainly on providing free-email the you should
> obviously keep everything in-house so you have total control over things.
>
> If email is only a fraction of your site's offering, I suggest you outsource
> because the overhead of doing it yourself is enormous and will cost you and
> your staff huge amounts of time better devoted to develop other parts of
> your site.

How about if we're an ISP and just want free web-based email reading for 
our current dialup and direct-connect customers to use while away from 
home?  What would you say then?

Jeff
--
Jeff Lasman, nobaloney.net
<jblists@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
<www.nobaloney.net>, <www.mailtraqna.com>, <www.email-lists.com>