There are a few email platforms out there, each with different capabilities and limitations. And it can be enough to make your head spin!

Let us break it down for you.

POP3:

Popular amongst ISPs (Shaw, Telus, etc.). Basic, archaic and does not support syncing of any kind. Deleting an email on one device will not delete it from the other. Folder creation is also local to the device – you will not have folders available (or synced) between multiple devices.

It’s very possible that your business’ email is setup as such; if not, IMAP is the alternative these same ISPs (or third-party web-hosts) provide.

IMAP:

IMAP is also popular with ISP type of mail accounts; though, it needs to be configured as such on the customer’s PC. For example, any Shaw or Telus email can be setup either as POP3 or IMAP – it depends on how it’s configured locally.

IMAP is nice in that it will sync emails and folders across all devices; however, it will not sync contacts or calendars.

ActiveSync (Exchange, Office 365, G-Suite):

ActiveSync is by and large the most powerful of the offerings. Not only does it sync with less conflicts or issues sometimes found with IMAP, it does sync email, folders, contacts and calendars!

We recommend this type of email platform for any/all small businesses who use Outlook, Thunderbird or business-class email software.

For those who simply like to login via a browser for their businesses email, see below.

Web-based (Hotmail, Outlook.com, Gmail, etc):

These web-based solutions (or a webmail provided by your ISP / web-host) work well, offering the features an ActiveSync platform does. But only within a browser. For example, if you setup a Hotmail or Gmail account in Outlook, it will default to IMAP, losing any contact / calendar sync you may be after.

If you’d like more information on how to get your business leveraging word-class email technologies such as ActiveSync, we recommend migrating your email account to Office 365. And we’d be happy to help! Contact Tech-Tree for more information.