WHY AN OUTSIDE SERVICE

Here are some reasons to use CleanMessage...

Free Up IT Support Staff

IT staff are a scarce resource. A managed service greatly reduces the time they have to spend handling spam, and thus they are freed up for other work. Here are some more general staffing considerations:

• IT staff always have more work on their hands than they can handle. There are always important projects that are pending, such as developing customer management or supply-chain management systems.


• Messaging support staffs are scarce. Time they put into developing an anti-spam solution will directly detract from other projects they must work on, such as an Active Directory upgrade.


• It's hard to hire someone that will quickly understand your email environment, and evaluate and deploy anti-spam technology in a timely way.


• Once the solution is in place, there are fewer ongoing management requirements. There is no need to apply updates to the spam rulesets or to the anti-spam software, since that is done by the managed service provider. The primary ongoing management activity is to make any updates to a company's whitelists if required.

Using a managed service - as opposed to a traditional software solution installed and maintained by the customer - greatly reduces the burden on technical staff.

Cost Savings

Managed solutions are less expensive than internal systems. Here's why:

• Hardware acquisition


• Operating system license for hardware platforms


• Management of operating system (patches, updates)


• Software license or subscription to anti-spam server software


• Support contract for anti-spam server software


• Applying anti-spam server version updates and patches


• Applying/changing anti-spam server rule sets


• Required bandwidth


• Improved detection of spam

Ease of Implementation

Some of the reasons why it is easier to adopt a managed solution are obvious. With managed solutions:

• There is no hardware or software to buy and maintain.


• You have an immediate implementation of a working, effective system. In essence, the system has the benefit of the accumulated knowledge and learning from seeing large amounts of spam destined for many organizations.


• The solution requires less up-front configuration and administration to become fully effective.

An implementation at a managed facility can begin in as little as 24 hours. It is difficult to imagine a company deploying a server-based solution as quickly.