Using Gmail for your business email

[barryhynd]

I've come across a few people who really talk up using Gmail for your business email. They seem to think that the spam filtering is very good and it's also intelligent enough to reply using your work email address etc.

I'm all for productivity and there are occassions where replying on the Blackberry just isn't practical. OK I could use webmail but sometimes these interfaces are not very good.

How easy is the to set up and is it really a practical solution that the IT gurus would recommend?

[Brian McIntosh]

Barry,

Until I got my Blackberry, I set up, and still have set up, Gmail to handle my mail when I'm out and about. As you say, using a BB to type out quite long emails is frustrating but, even before that I found Gmail really useful for checking mail when I was in front of any computer. It was really easy to set up as well. Well, I did it so it must have been! The good thing about it is, I can receive mails to my McIntosh Photography email account, a copy is sent to Gmail and I can reply from Gmail through my McIntosh Photography account so the recipient sees mail from McIntosh Photography not Gmail. You can add loads of accounts this way. The spam filtering is excellent as well. Hope this helps.

[Third Sector Forums]

I set up Google Apps for Domains for our charity partnership, so all our emails look nice and professional (ending in @familysupport.org.uk). It also means google host our email service, it's Family Support branded and we get to use the brilliant gmail interface. Oh and gmail for Blackberry is brilliant.

[barryhynd]

Hi Guys,

Thanks for the posts. You are correct in that it is very easy to set up. I already had a gmail account so it was just a case of adding the email addresses and passwords through the settings tab. This will save me loads of time

[Brian McIntosh]

It's much the same as setting up an outlook account. Even I can do that! Most people that I talked to about setting up Blackberry email accounts said it's really difficult but not so. Username, password, POP and STMP settings are all you need. I'm off to become an IT bod now.

[Neil]

Hi Barry

I am also a Gmail fan and use Gmail to run my Neil<AT>redcherrymarketing.co.uk email.

The other benefit is when collaborating with companies and individuals we can easily share documents and update them using the Google documents interface. This is a lot easier than firing documents back and forward as attachments. The other benefit is you are always looking at the same document.

There are lots more useful benefits of using the various Google apps as a small business. Too many to go into here.

Big thumbs up from me.

[Third Sector Forums]

I'm currently developing a Google Site as our charity partnership's intranet...well worth looking into if you have a few staff or you work with partners regularly.