You can see Top 10 Email Tools for Small and Medium Businesses and Top 3 Email Tools for Small and Medium Businesses to look into details

The search giant Google’s bold attempt to take over the mailing aspect resulted in what we now know as Gmail. As it has Google’s brand name sticking to its forehead, it definitely stands on a level with the other Google products. But Gmail provides lots more services than just sending and storing emails. Though it can be stated, without any dubiety that Gmail does an excellent job at handling voluminous messages from users all around the globe and hardly ever fails its clients, it would not be justified to keep Gmail’s name limited to that.

Though Gmail has gone in sync to provide a customized chat program integrated with it and has recently taken a step in demarcating the useful information from the advertising, promotional emails in user accounts, some clients still hope that minor glitches could be brought under the eye of inspection. Even after balancing the pros and cons, our experts have pulled Gmail into the top three for the rundown of Communication tools. Gmail’s recent advancement of categorizing the emails into five categories, namely, Primary, Social, Promotions, Updates, and Spam; have made using Gmail a lot more comfortable and intuitive.  And we salute Gmail for its customization settings that provide its users to make the application fit to their likeness.

Editions and Pricing

Gmail provides three editions for its clients to pursue according to their needs. The functionalities differ as per the editions and memory space available increases.

1. Free (Legacy) Edition: The Gmail Legacy edition provides up to 15GB of email storage. It also provides customized mail address services depending on your company name. The free version of Gmail even provides security services and business controls to his clients like filtering the junk emails as well as an option to turn off Google ads. Accessibility is open for any third party devices like mobile, tablets etc. along with video chats and document editor. It does not provide the option of free users to disable IMAP or POP access. The free edition is suitable for individual use and small business.
2. Apps for Work Edition: This edition provides slightly more features than the free version and seems to be apt for small organizations. The subscribers of this version get 30GB of email storage with each email having 25MB attachment limit and can be sent to a maximum of 500 recipients per message. Apps for Work edition provides all the addresses and mailing list controls as does the free version with an additional functionality of user controlled mailing lists. This version provides accessibility options with Microsoft Outlook as well. It is available for a price of $5/user/month. With the provided cost Gmail targets small and medium businesses with its services.
3. Unlimited Edition: This version is the set of ultimate services that Google provides regarding emails with unlimited email storage, all address and mailing list options, all email security and business controls along with Google vault, all accessibility options including integration with Microsoft outlook, voice and video chat and several data import options like migrating data using Admin console and Multi-user imports from IBM Notes which other editions of Google do not allow, all in $10/user/month.

Capabilities and Supporting Set of Features

Getting Started with Gmail
An easy sign-up process by filling a sign-up form under the ‘Create My Account’ option. It requires a user’s basic information. Google follows a strict privacy policy regarding the safeguarding of its client’s identity so you can even fill in your contact number without worrying about getting spam emails or advert calls. Google uses this number to recover your account if ever such need arises.

 

 

 

 

 

Your Account
Gmail greets you with a furnished dashboard with various options that you will require managing your emails and many more things. The options for managing your emails from different categories with account settings and Google apps option, all are accessible from this dashboard. On the left side, a vertical list supplies you with the mail related options that a user might require like inbox, sent emails and drafts.

 

 

 

The central window of the dashboard consists of the details of category a user has selected from the left side vertical options list. For instance, if the inbox is selected, the central panel displays the contents of the inbox with emails sorted under five categories for easy handling of incoming emails. A user can add or remove any category suiting to his needs.

Gmail automatically signs its users for its instant chat Hangouts which can be accessed directly from the dashboard. Using this service a user can send messages to his contacts and make online calls as well.

 

Gmail dashboard also provides options to search for specific emails with content keyword search and also provides account settings option to customize your account with the option to apply various themes.

 

 

 

Applying themes change the outlook of the dashboard to a more appealing one.

 

 

The dashboard also offers an option to integrate another account with the currently opened Gmail account using the ‘Add Account’ option and is of great use if a user wishes to keep an eye on two accounts simultaneously like work or personal account.

 

 

Additional Features

• Option available to purchase additional storage space to be shared with other Google services.
• Provides services to create a fixed template for the emails a user sends.
• Offline browser access is also provided by Google Gears.
• A user can use up to 5 POP accounts in Google Emailing services in the ‘From’ bar.
• Provides an integration with Google calendar.
• Can pick up details of shared contacts from Google+ profiles.

Pros and Cons of Gmail

Pros

• Offers unlimited online storage.
• IMAP or POP access free of charge.
• Smart sorting according to content in threads.
• Flag emails with starring option
• Thorough virus checking and malware’s.
• Server crash rates are very low.
• Customized keyboard shortcuts.
• Excellent spam handling.

Cons

• Searching Google web is more efficient than a search in Google mail.
• Unlimited online storage costs are high.
• Heavy Google integrations like Microsoft Outlook etc. take toll of speed.
• Supports targeted advertising using information from products.

Differentiator

Gmail provides many services apart from handling a large volume of messages from users across the globe. It provides customized chat program with keyboard shortcuts, integration with google calendar, smart sorting capability, flag emails with starring options and many more capabilities which make it as the top best mailing tool. Get start and look out for these features along with some new features.

You can refer the detailed Email tools product review for MS Outlook and Aabaco for a quick comparison