Email/Exchange style hosting for individuals?

In My Humble Opinion
1

I have had my own custom domain with hosted Pop3 e-mail for 10+ years now, and while I have had multiple blackberrys, the furthest I’ve gotten is just some basic e-mail sync. I also host accounts for a few family members on the same domain and they are pretty satisfied with the current state of affairs. My current hosting only costs me about 20$ a year for everyone.

I am now thinking of moving to either a new Android or Iphone device, and thinking it would be nice to have more robust PIM functionality between my home and Work PC’s, as well as my phone device. Features I’m thinking include calender & contact sync without having to plug in every computer in sequence to propagate across changes.

I would be very curious to see what, if anything, others have done regarding hosting with some kind of “exchange style” functionality. I don’t want to have to spend a ton of money if I can avoid it.

I’ve seen Google Apps has a fair bit of functionality, and seems like a strong option at 50/account/year. MS Exchange hosting specifically seems to run about 4-6 per month per mailbox, so would be about 120$ per year combined. If my wife and I both switch to iphones, mobileme seems like a decent move but pricey as well. My other option is to try and host something on my home server, but that seems painful to do, plus I am relying on my own uptime in a disaster.

I am hoping some other dopers may have tried to do something similar?

2

My advice, for what it’s worth, would be to use the service that’s most compatible with your smart phone. i.e. If you get an iPhone, use Apple’s MobileMe. If you get an Android phone, use Google Apps.

I prefer to spend a little more money and eliminate synchronization headaches.

I personally have Macs at home and so I use MobileMe. I dont know what solutions there are available for hosting on your custom domain and personal website.

3

I’ve been using Google Apps (free, not premium) for my custom domain for a few years now, and it works like a charm. Going from POP3 to IMAP was such a nice change.

I’ve only ever used it for the one email address I use, but I went to check the management screen and it looks like you can have up to 50 users:

“You can create up to 50 user accounts for this organization. If you would like more users, please purchase Google Apps Premier Edition.”

Whether you go Android or iPhone (though don’t overlook Palm Pre! Best phone I’ve ever had) Google Apps will work with any Exchange capable phone. That said, I only use it for my own personal email. Calendars and what-not I use my company’s Exchange Server for.

4

I use Google Apps free tier also (for both mail and calendar, syncing to my iPhone). It’s fine. I like the Mobile Me web interface better, but they don’t handle custom domains nearly as well, so it’s pretty much a non-starter for me.