Question 3 - Can you point all of our mail to our internal server?

The customer has decided to run their own mail server, almost always Microsoft Exchange. This is generally the idea of a consultant (who will then install the software or someone in accounting that likes computers.) This may be a good idea depending on the companies needs, but often is not.

Some Lessons I picked Up

Resist the Microsoft Sales Drones and their Consultants

MS makes money by selling software. Now that everyone owns "Office" and must upgrade every two years in order to continue to read the latest ".doc" format, MS wants to make money by selling Enterprise Software, such as IIS, Exchange, Proxy, etc. Consultants would love to sell you this stuff and set up an ongoing relationship where they perform the maintenance and ongoing configuration functions.

Recall that web hosting is largely a commodity. Its cheap. The quality is very high.

Determine if it makes more sense to out source mail. The infrastructure to support mail is becoming much greater due to the spam problem. It is becoming a full time job for people such as me. An ISPs investment in email can be leveraged across many organizations.

Watch out for the Calendar! The single reason many companies move to Exchange is the scheduling functions. Usually, upper management really, really, really, likes scheduling. There are other ways to schedule that won't force you to also run a particular mail server.

When you make decisions, try to determine where the incentives are for each person. An ISP or Hosting Company, or Outsourcing Mail Company is incentified to make you happy every month while keeping costs down. A sales person is incentified to make a sale. A consultant is incentified to bill hours. Most consultants are pretty good, but they would like to set things up where you become dependent on them to ensure a regular revenue stream. An ISP or Service Provider will also try to set up a situation where you become dependent on their service. Try to keep your services as "generic" as possible. This will ensure that you can take advantage of the commodity nature of most services if you need to. More choices are better.

Don't Let Accountants Manage Your Network

It is a well known fact that good accountants really, really, really like to play with computers. When an accountant starts taking charge of a network as a company begins to grow, they WILL want to move every service possible In House. They will fire up DNS on the NT / 2000 box. They will fire up proxy servers. They will attempt to move mail in house, along with web hosting.

You don't necessarily need an "expert" to handle your network. Especially if you out source the more dangerous stuff. But make sure that your network person has a calm temperament and is capable of reasoning. Watch out for people that are enamored with the technology. If you are small, then really consider outsourcing. If you are large, get someone in with the skill set to manager your network. People with Unix experience tend to be better because they understand networking from a lower, functional level as opposed to from the "I click this switch" level.