Keeping Your Spam Solution Up To Date!

It seems like spammers and network professionals play a big game of whack a mole with each other. No matter how hard software manufacturers try to predict what’s around the corner, spammers change the map entirely. The only constant is the destination, your inbox. Because of this, it makes a lot of sense, in keeping your anti spam measures up to date.

As a gold level GFi partner, FrugalBrothers uses GFi MailEssentials V12 as a major part of our spam defense. It’s a fantastic product that has won numerous awards, and if you troll the Microsoft News Groups it is constantly mentioned as best of breed. There are tens of thousands of registered users around the world that depend on it every day, to keep their inboxes clear of spam.

Unfortunately some of these organizations failed to work with a GFi partner, who for whatever reason failed to properly explain software maintenance, and the importance of keeping MailEssentials updated with the latest build. The simple fact is, unlike wine, all anti spam products do not get better with age. If they are not routinely updated, well the software will only defend against spam using techniques that were known and anticipated at the time it was released.

Case in point was a client who I inherited from an online reseller . I noticed they were running GFi MailEssentials Version 9. They had kept their maintenance up to date, yet failed to actually do it. When I called the registered owner to discuss upgrading their product, he couldn’t wait to tell me how MailEssentials was not working that well and he was considering tossing it out in favor of another solution.

This client was ready to throw away a substantial investment in 500 mailboxes of MailEssentials because; his “computer guy” had never bothered to update the software in the first place. After I took a few minutes to explain the business case for keeping MailEssentials, he agreed to have it updated. A week later, I have a very happy client who told me his spam problems went away, and MailEssentials was working great. This client now considers FrugalBrothers a trusted partner and the only source to purchase new GFi products. I also am working with him on adding GFi MailSecurity to his company.

You see unlike many other software products that perform their functions perfectly well no matter what the release =date, e-mail protection, antivirus, and network security software requires constant updates in order to maintain performance.