Why Choose MailEnable over Office 365?

One of the barriers to implementing Office 365 as a mail solution for business is the cost of purchasing user licenses. MailEnable can deliver significant benefits and cost savings for organisations with a large number of users or those dealing with a high volume of mail. MailEnable has no per user or per domain license costs which reduces the total cost of ownership (TCO) for providing mail services. But there are also other benefits of using MailEnable instead of Office 365.

Renting vs Owning

Once you start paying for Office 365, you must continue to pay for the software subscription or lose access to your email. If you have a large number of users, even a small increase in this monthly user fee can increase the cost to your business astronomically. By contrast, using MailEnable, there is no upfront cost (Standard Edition) or a once off fee (for paid editions with enhanced features) and you maintain control of your own data indefinitely.Costs of Office 365 (300 users) per year

Office 365 Business Essentials

300 users x $5 per month x 12 months

Total cost = $18,000

Cost of MailEnable (1000 users) per year

MailEnable Enterprise Edition

One off server fee (unlimited users/domains) = $699

Exchange ActiveSync (1000 users) = $1198 per year

Total cost = $1,897

Control of your own data

If you want to create a new user mailbox on MailEnable, there is no additional license fee required. You can also set up your own custom groups and distribution lists with no restrictions. Depending on the nature of your business, you may have polices around data retention or privacy that are required by law. Being in control of your mail services allows you to determine your own policies around data retention and privacy.

Flexibility with Integration

MailEnable has an extensive API, and can be easily configured through scripting and Powershell. Since you have access to the raw email data and configuration settings it gives you the power to both extend and integrate your email with other business processes. 

Better performance

If you are a hosting your own mail server within your premises, both incoming and internal mail is received much faster than it would be for a hosted message solution like Office 365. Mail does not need to be sent off to a remote server before being delivered and mail sent internally will be received instantly. Both sending and receiving of messages is faster using your own mail server.

Privacy

When your mail is stored somewhere else, as in the case with hosted mail services like Office 365, there is always the possibility that someone else has access to your data. If privacy of your email content is important then hosting your own email is an absolute must.

No Restrictions

Office 365 has multiple limitations in place which can restrict bulk senders of mail and/or those that deal with large volumes and throughput of mail. This includes message and message size limits (1 million messages/up to 150MB), sender/recipient limits (500 recipients/10,000 recipients per day/30 messages per minute), mailbox storage and folder limits (up to 50 GB), distribution group limits (100,000 users, limited sending to 5000 users), and address book limits (up to 1000 addresses).These restrictions can cause issues for senders of bulk mail, those with large address/mailing lists, or those who send large files or retain high volumes of mail. None of these restrictions apply when running MailEnable as your mail server. Of course, limitations can be put in place to keep the mail server running optimally, but the limitations you put in place are at your own discretion or as a function of your choice of hardware.

References:

https://products.office.com/en-us/business/office-365-business-essentials
https://technet.microsoft.com/en-au/library/exchange-online-limits.aspx