If you want someone else to worry about email borne viruses and spam then this service from Google, one of the fruits of its purchase of Postini, is a reasonable option. The setup does not require a modicum of IT knowledge; it consists of uploading a list of users and changing you MX records (mail exchanger records). Once configured the service scans all email for viruses and spam before forwarding your mail to your servers. In addition the service will archive emails for as long as you need. You do need to specify the number of years you wish to retain those email for when you order the service. This archiving feature is useful as it provides a handy backup of fall-back mechanism. There is no volume limit and you only pay for number of years that you specify. Additional years are charged for at a discounted rate. However, you should bear in mind that, despite the name of the service, this is not a legal archive and is no substitute for proper email management solutions.

We like the user account synchronisation and single sign on features. The service also provides a good plug-in to MS Outlook that allows users to search their message archive. On the security side, Google supports TLS (Transport Layer Security) which should improve the security of emails that you exchange with your business partners. You can even set the service to require TLS for specific email domains, so you know that emails to and from these domains cannot be read on the Internet.

The service does not offer filtering for obscene images; Google claims that such protection does not work anyway. We have to agree; simply analysing a percentage of skin tones in a picture is not going to differentiate between obscene content and legitimate family pictures.