Microsoft exchange or something?

Aychamo BanBan

<Banned>
6,338
7,144
Hello!

I'm working on some of the tech behind setting up a small business. I have my domain name, lets call it Falxy.Com that I registered through GoDaddy. I want to be able to have everyone who works in my business have a @falxy.com email account. And to be able to check their email on their phones, and I guess on desktops @ work, which I haven't decided if it will be macs or windows yet. At my current job when I'm logged into my windows computer, I can just click on the email thing at the bottom and it opens, I think, Outlook and I can immediately check my email for work. How can I set this up? I see Microsoft 365, Exchange, etc. What feature am I looking for? Here is GoDaddy's email service page: Get Professional Business Email from GoDaddy CA
 
  • 1Like
Reactions: 1 user

whoo

<Silver Donator>
1,134
5,155
If you're not a technical person in the IT sector, go Microsoft 365. You'll get everything you need now and options to grow/mature later. Setup is easy, and very little maintenance.
 

Void

Experiencer
<Gold Donor>
9,427
11,094
I am not an IT professional at all, but somehow we ended up with an Exchange server 15 years ago or so. Any time anything at all needed to be done with it, we had to call someone like Tech2U to do it, because even though I could fix random shit here and there to keep things going, Exchange was a complete mystery. And several times those guys had no fucking clue why something wasn't working, so had to back it all up and start over. Which, since they work by hour, could have been a scam, but I think I got to know them enough to believe they really had no idea. Could be wrong.

Also, at least back then, Exchange itself was extremely expensive, and you had to buy a license for each user. And you had to be running Microsoft Server software of some kind, which is also a pretty big investment (even if you ignore maintenance costs for when it eventually needs work to keep running). Now, that might have changed with the 365 stuff, and/or GoDaddy might handle a lot of that now, so I'm not sure if it became way easier or not.

Point being, it is VASTLY easier if you just pay $5 a month per email address with Gmail. Yeah, Google can suck my cock and is probably stealing all of my info so they can send me better ads, but in terms of time and cost involved, you can literally be set up in a few minutes with a minimal investment. And on-the-fly you can easily adjust how many accounts you have at any given time, both adding and subtracting. And of course you can literally check it on any device you are able to go to gmail.com.

There are probably other companies that do the same thing without being complete shitbags like Google, but I'm not aware of them personally, and I doubt that it can get any easier than them.
 

a_skeleton_06

<Banned>
1,923
2,410
Yeah, just do O365. Exchange is going to be too much for you to manage. You can do everything that you want via the admin portal and you don't have to maintain that shit.
 

Araxen

Golden Baronet of the Realm
10,258
7,604
Maybe things have changed, but from what I remember, they were trying to make it so you had to do a ton of stuff via PowerShell.
 

whoo

<Silver Donator>
1,134
5,155
Maybe things have changed, but from what I remember, they were trying to make it so you had to do a ton of stuff via PowerShell.

For a small business with straightforward needs, Office365 is so simple. Starting at like $10/user you get email and office apps for everyone. It's a no brainer and you look professional. The only way I'd recommend Google is if your customers are schools. Many of them use Google. I have no personal skin in the Microsoft game, I've just tried most options and O365 is the best combo of compatibility, professional options, scalability, and ease.
 
  • 1Solidarity
Reactions: 1 user

Araxen

Golden Baronet of the Realm
10,258
7,604
For a small business with straightforward needs, Office365 is so simple. Starting at like $10/user you get email and office apps for everyone. It's a no brainer and you look professional. The only way I'd recommend Google is if your customers are schools. Many of them use Google. I have no personal skin in the Microsoft game, I've just tried most options and O365 is the best combo of compatibility, professional options, scalability, and ease.

Yeah, 365 is the way to go. You don't have to mess around with the server itself.
 

Mageling

Bronze Knight of the Realm
232
0
On top of that, most of the small business versions allow a good amount of access to AAD features like 2FA requirements for accounts.

Deployed the service for years, and it was the go-to for an easily deployable system that has a lot of functionality to use if you choose.

While it can be a struggle to get support, once you get out of the call centers and into the US based folks, you can get some traction with real people.
 

Mist

Eeyore Enthusiast
<Gold Donor>
30,418
22,225
Maybe things have changed, but from what I remember, they were trying to make it so you had to do a ton of stuff via PowerShell.
If you want to make lots of bulk moves/adds/changes or do any behind-the-scenes integrations work with 3rd party products and services, yes, you do have to use a lot of PowerShell.

But for what 90% of small businesses need email for, you will never need anything beyond the web based cloud admin portal.

If you do have to make bulk changes to users, you can just Google all the PowerShell you need. Exchange Online is one of the most Google-able enterprise products out there.

PS: With the right licenses you can also get Teams and also throw away your office phone system and the phone bill.
 
  • 1Like
Reactions: 1 user