As technology advances, the pros are starting to outweigh the cons.

Email suffers the indignity of being pervasive to the point of obscurity. Much like toilet paper, everyone expects it to be there when needed, and to use it every single day, yet it is rarely given much deliberative thought. As the world becomes virtually papered in billions (trillions?) of emails, the matter becomes an exercise in exhaustion for IT pros who watch in exasperation as the stuff continues to flush their resources.

“In some cases there are costs benefits to outsourcing enterprise email, but in all cases it frees up IT resources,” said Matthew Cain, lead email analyst at Gartner. “And, for many, that’s reason enough to do it.”

Still, outsourcing enterprise email is a task best undertaken with care as email is not merely a disposable commodity, but rather the very pulse of a company. The downside to hosted email is the loss of control as you put your most valuable communications in someone else’s hands. There are quagmires and periphery obstacles to address before you hand off your email to an outsider: compliance and security issues top the list.