

Ask HN: Looking for hosted email solutions, outside the USA. - nirvana

We've been using Google Apps for a couple years now.  The plain problem is, google loses our mail. It is inconsistent and difficult to diagnose and as far as google is concerned, the mail never showed up on their end.  But we know we're losing mail.<p>For various reasons, we'd like to host outside the USA. We're pretty flexible as to the country, so long as the infrastructure is decent. I don't want to debate this requirement, I don't necessarily even agree with it, but "the boss" is involved and we want to keep the boss happy, right?  (This is also why, even if we fix the issue with Google, we need to migrate.  No disparagement meant for google, they provide a great value, just not meeting our needs now.)<p>So, can anyone recommend an email hosting provider?<p>Preferably, an organization with a significant reputation, who cares about providing good service, who would be really embarrassed to do wrong by us (e.g.: not some tiny shop) and who either specializes in this service, or is really very good at it.<p>Any service that specializes in secure communications gets bonus points.  I'm looking at hush mail, but they're a US corporation, though it seems their servers are in Canada. our employees use iOS devices and laptops, so I'm not sure hush is a good fit, unless they have an iPhone App.<p>Thanks in advance for any advice!<p>PS- I did try to search hacker news for this stuff, but a couple attempts didn't produce much.  Google searches produce a lot of questionable recommendations, and stack exchange, et. al. close questions where an opinion is being solicited.<p>PPS-- I am open to the possibility of hosing it ourselves, though I don't like the idea.  I have run my own mail servers in the past for many years and don't recall that period fondly.  But, if there's a turnkey linux appliance that would do it, that could work.   I looked at TurnkeyLinux.org's Zimbra appliance, but zimbra is a confusing thing, it isn't clear what the differences between the commercial and open source version are, and it seems more interested in providing webmail than POP/SMTP mail.  But maybe that's what I need. Any Zimbra experts out there?
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dirkdeman
BIT in The Netherlands could be a good option for you
(<http://www.bit.nl/home/faciliteiten/e-mailplatform/>). The Netherlands have
excellent infrastructure and rather liberal laws, and BIT is a large player in
the market here. I've dealt with them before (and I live next to one of their
datacenters) and I can highly recommend them. The website is in Dutch but you
can email them in English (sales@bit.nl).

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samarudge
OVH do quite a good hosted Exchange solution, they're quite big in Europe and
have a fair reputation for what they do. There's even the option for a
dedicated server which they manage if you're worried about security

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nirvana
It's been years since I dealt with exchange... I assume we can use any mail
client? EG: Apple's Mail.app or anything else that talks POP and SMTP (with
proper configuration, naturally)

Is it likely that POP and SMTP are not going to be on by default if we go with
OVH? (Sorry if that's stupid, I'm under the impression that Exchange uses its
own protocol.)

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emilw
On hosting it yourself, have you looked at Zarafa? <http://www.zarafa.com/>

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dramaticus3
<http://fastmail.fm/>

SSL all the way, bought out earlier in the year by Opera. I've used the free
version for 10+ years without issue.

Whois says

    
    
        Domain Information
        Query: fastmail.fm
        Status: Active
        Created: 31 Dec 1999 05:00 PST
        Modified: 12 May 2010 15:18 PDT
        Expires: 17 Feb 2012 05:00 PST
        Name Servers:
            ns1.messagingengine.com
            ns2.messagingengine.com
    
        Registrar Information
        Registrar Name: Key-Systems
    
        Registrant:
        Name: Christer Mjellem Strand
        Organisation: Opera Software ASA
        Address:
                Waldemar Thranes gt. 98
                Oslo 0175
                NO
        Phone Number: +47.23692400

~~~
_delirium
It looks like fastmail.fm itself is still hosted in the U.S., though, despite
now being owned by a Norwegian firm--- its IPs are allocated to nyi.net.

