August 1st, 2011
Attention Zimbra Email Users, If your email accounts are hosted with Alternate Image, please be aware of new changes within the next upcoming weeks. Alternate Image currently uses a high end email system called Zimbra, which was recently purchased by VM Ware, and has resulted in a new pricing structure that has caused our email usage fees to triple. Up until now, we have absorbed all of the email costs and offered the use of Zimbra as a free service to our website clients. Due to the substantial increase in our email account fees, Alternate Image will now need to bill for email accounts to help share the costs starting September 1, 2011. These rates will be competitive with other comparable email systems and we appreciate your understanding in this new change.
Email Account Pricing (Effective Sept. 1st, 2011) We are offering a Standard and Pro version of Zimbra email accounts. This will go by domain, so your website will either use the standard or pro versions, depending on which email plan your company selects:
Standard Email: $15 per mailbox, per year
Includes unlimited storage
Pro Email: $30 per mailbox , per year
Includes share calendar features and mobile sync, unlimited storage
Payments for mailboxes will be renewed on your contract anniversary date and paid in full for one year. You will receive a print-out listing all of the mailboxes for your website and will be able to remove unused emails and receive an updated invoice for email account usage each year. This will help us delete any unused email accounts and consolidate your email billing into one invoice per year for all email accounts used by your company.
Compare to:
Gmail - $50 per year per user, limited mailbox size (25 GB)
Yahoo - $34.95 per year per user
Go Daddy- $14.28 per year, limited mailbox size (1 GB) Frequently Asked QuestionsWhat email inboxes for my website domain are currently hosted by Alternate Image?
For a list of email inboxes hosted on your website domain, please email help@aisupportdesk.com. What if I decide to move my email accounts somewhere else?
Please let the AI support staff know if you are changing email hosting providers so that we can make sure your MX records are properly set. It is the client's responsibility to retrieve or extract any emails, contacts or data from Zimbra. Once your email hosting is switched you will not be able to access Zimbra.
What is the difference between the Pro and Standard Accounts?
If you use the shared calendar feature or mobile sync features of Zimbra, you will need to upgrade to the Pro version. If you only use your account for sending/receiving emails, then the standard account will work for you. Pro accounts will login at Pro.AiMailbox.com, and standard email accounts will continue to login at AiMailbox.com to access your inbox.
Do I have to change any settings on my mailbox, mobile device or Outlook application?
Standard accounts will not need to make any changes. Pro accounts will login at Pro.AiMailbox.com. If you are using Outlook or a third party application to download and view your emails, you will need to update your account settings so that the server changes from aimailbox.com to Pro.AiMailbox.com for the incoming and outgoing server. You will also need to update this on your mobile device.
What if only a few emails on my website are Pro accounts?
Pro and Standard versions will be by website domain name, so either all of your website email accounts will be Pro or all of them will be Standard. Unfortunately there will be no way to pick and choose by individual email accounts, as Pro accounts will be setup on a separate email server.
Can I start with the standard mailbox and upgrade later?
Of course. Contact support when you are ready to upgrade and you will be billed only for the months you will be using the Pro email plan. Keep in mind that every account with your website will be upgraded to Pro. Also, you will no longer use aimailbox.com, but will login at Pro.aimailbox.com.
What about email aliases and forwards?
Email aliases will not be billed as mailboxes because there is no actual mailbox account. It is simply a forward to another email account. To setup an alias, the email address must be setup on your domain and forward to another email address on your domain. To prevent being billed for mailboxes that are unused and simply redirecting or forwarding to another email address- you can request that an alias be setup. There will be no billing for forwards.
Note: An Alias cannot be setup for emails not hosted on your website domain, like Gmail, AOL, etc. These are for your company's internal emails. The best way to reduce the number of mailboxes is to setup individual staff emails and then setup aliases that forward emails to those staff members. Alias are optimal for the general emails addresses, like info@, sales@, reservations@, etc, which can just forward to your employees. Just be sure to let us know when you have employee changeovers. Send a support ticket so we can process your request correctly and tell us the employee email address and which aliases to remove.
What does email support include?
Email support from Alternate Image includes setting up your emails and providing instructions for setting up your email on third party applications, like Outlook or mobile devices. Ultimately, it is the responsibility of the client if they choose to use a 3rd party application to learn software as we can only support the use of Zimbra webmail, which is hosted by AI. We can assist with things like Outlook setup but unfortunately cannot teach you how to use it or troubleshoot if you have errors with your Outlook application.
Support staff must be contacted via the ticketing system (simply email help@aisupportdesk.com from your registered support email) for the following services:
- setting up new email addresses
- setting up forwards and aliases
- reseting passwords
- deleting unused mailboxes
- upgrading from Standard to Pro Account PlansExpect a Call from Alternate Image We recently contacted email clients to determine whether your accounts will be Standard or Pro. If your email accounts will be Pro, please expect a phone call from support with instructions for updating your settings. You will need to go to pro.aimailbox.com to login to your mailbox and will also need to update your Outlook and mobile device settings. Please see our Email page for more info. If you would like to upgrade, please email help@aisupportdesk.com or contact us at 386-760-1774 anytime from 9am to 5:30pm (EST), Mon- Fri. Thank you,
The AI Support Team |
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