Why did Copper Bridge partner with Postini®?

• We partnered with Postini because we like to partner with people who are the best at what they do.  We used to try to do our own spam and virus filtering but it was a night mare.  We had to buy extra software and extra service contracts and all we got was extra headaches.  Honestly, trying to maintain a spam & virus filtering service is not for the faint of heart.  We probably spent 2 hours a day every day trying to maintain the service so that we would get marginal results and still a bunch of junk would get through. 

• One day our virus update became corrupted and seriously degraded the performance of the entire mail system.  Good messages were being inadvertently flagged as containing viruses.  That was the proverbial last straw because it is one thing to use up our time but it is a whole different thing when our customers were affected.  We knew there had to be a better way.  We did a bunch of research on different anti-spam & anti-virus providers.  We went down a couple different dead ends but one road led to Postini.

• We saw several technical magazines reviews that compared many anti-spam & anti-virus providers and Postini would come out on top.  They were top rated not just for catching spam but also having the lowest false positive ratio.  The false positive ratio is a little bit lesser known statistic but it is critical in its importance.  A false positive is a good message that got mistakenly flagged as spam.

• Many providers require you to buy their software or, even worse, buy their hardware in order to filter your email.  These people want you to introduce another point of failure into the system that processes your email.  Thanks but no thanks.  We researched Postini's system and were blown away by the simplicity of Postini's system.  A company doesn't have to do or install anything on site.  The only thing that a company has to do to take advantage of Postini's filtering is to point their MX record in DNS to Postini and, of course, sign up with Copper Bridge to provide the service.

I don't know what a DNS MX record is.

• That is OK.  We know what it is and we can help you figure out where yours is.  It really isn't that difficult and we can point you in the right direction.

Who or what is Postini?

• Postini is the largest secure e-mail managed service, processing over 3 Billion messages per week for 6 million users.  They process more messages than Google does searches.  There are only 4 companies that process more mail than Postini and that is MSN, Yahoo, and AOL (and they have huge spam problems).  There is no way that any sane person would want to attempt to recreate the infrastructure that Postini has in place to do this.

This information is good but I want to know who else uses Postini?

• Please visit Postini's Resource Center where there is a lot more information.  When you get done there, please come back here and we can give you plain English answers to your questions.

So how will Postini filter my email?

• It is actually incredibly simple.  All you have to do is point your DNS MX record to Postini.  Then using the Postini interface, you point Postini to your email server.  You don't have to install additional hardware.  You don't have to maintain any hardware.  Postini takes care of it all on their end.  What a relief that there is technology that actually makes your life simpler.

Won't using Postini create additional delay in my mail delivery?

• The technical answer is, of course, yes.  However, the practical answer is no.  The average delay that Postini introduces is in the 30 to 45 millisecond range.  That is 30/1000th of a second.  There is no way that you will even be able to notice that.

I don't like the idea of someone else reading my messages.

• We don't either.  Nobody at Postini actually reads your message.  Postini's network of servers process your email against their anti-spam and anti-virus validation engine.

This all sounds great...but how much is it?

• Well, that depends on the number of email accounts that you have.  If you have less than 50 email accounts, it'll be $5.00 per month per account.  If you have more than 50 email accounts, it'll be $4.00 each account.  If you have more than 100 accounts, it'll be $30.  If you have 200 or more accounts, call us because there are volume discounts available.

Do I have to sign all my users up for the Postini service?

• No, you don't.  You can pick and choose which email addresses get filtered.  You only get charged for those addresses that are active in the Postini service.  And, mailing lists, aliases, or virtual addresses, do not count as an email address.  That means you don't get charged for those types of addresses.

Why do I have to sign up with Copper Bridge to use Postini?  Why don't I just go direct to Postini?

• If you are a large business and have more than 250 email addresses, then by all means go to directly to Postini and sign up with them there.  If you aren't that big, then chances are, Postini will direct you to a partner that will help you.  We would love to be able to earn your business.

Is Postini easy to use?

• We think it is incredibly easy to use.  Postini hides all the complexity behind an intuitive web interface that puts you in control of your email spam and virus filtering.