Email Service & Organisation

[Mr Pointy]

I realise this will probably attract a number of 'use Gmail' comments but I'll try anyway. It's a bit long but I'm trying to specify what is needed.

Executive summary:
I'm looking for a new email service/organisation to enable control of several accounts from one interface.

Long version:
I do a substantial amount of work for one client who has their own Exchange server & hence I have my own account of [e-mail]. On my laptop & desktop I run Outlook in Cached Exchange mode & it works well. I like the Outlook interface & can work it well enough to enable me to work efficiently. I can sync my mail for this client across my desktop, laptop, iPad & iPhone & it's peachy.

I also have my own domain, myco.co.uk, with mail service from 1&1 with addresses like [e-mail] which I use for other clients & as the interface for my business. Currently I POP connect into this with Thunderbird & I now dislike it intensely & want to move off onto Outlook.

I also have a number of Gmail accounts but these are usually created on an ad-hoc basis for specific tasks.

I tried adding a new .pst account to Outlook to pull mail from my domain but there are some issues around rules & signatures. It seems that rules affect all accounts & tweaking the rules usually ends up with it only running on my local machine rather than on the Exchange server. This leads to issues with the iDevices not being synced unless my laptop is on. I'm running Outlook 2007 so I'm not sure if this would be different with a later version of Outlook.

Is there an overarching system/program that will allow me to manage all of my accounts while not having them interact with each other? I'm happy to look at stuff like Office 365 or Hosted Exchange but I'm not sure they are going to do what I'm after. If Gmail can do this I might consider it but one key issue is that I need local copies of all mail on my laptop & desktop.

[Mr Pointy]

bhstewie said:

You can't just us multiple Outlook profiles?

Well it would mean I'd have to close Outlook down every time I wanted to change profile. It's not really what I was after, but it might temporarily solve some of the Rules issues I've been having.

[Mr Pointy]

AB said:

I might have misunderstood what you were after here. You can have multiple accounts on Outlook can't you?
On Outlook for Mac I have both work and personal Exchange set up as well as a pop account I occasionally use for club committee stuff.

Yes, you can have multiple accounts & I have set that up, although I didn't think you could have two Exchange accounts configured at the same time. The problem (or one of them) is that when I run a rule on the work account it also runs for all accounts which causes a few issues. I need to improve my personal account anyway so I'll look at the Hosted Exchange offerings. Thunderbird actually allows me to control a number of accounts of different types (non-Exchange) but it's dross to work with.

[Mr Pointy]

Thanks to all for the helpful responses, it looks like some of my issues will be resolved by upgrading from Outlook 2007. Since the rest of the office suite is of the same vintage I think I'm going to go for Office 365 Business Premium which will get all my PCs & laptops upgraded & provide MS Hosted Exchange for my business account. I'll then either look as a new domain for personal stuff or have a fiddle with getting it going as IMAP. I want to get away from using my ISPs mailbox & address for personal stuff anyway as it's a disincentive to moving to a new ISP.

Should I just sign up with MS or is there an advantage to buying through a reseller, & if so can anyone recommend one?