"It seems odd that all ISP's don't offer email services. They surely cost practically bugger all and are a method of locking in customers."
Until you start dealing with being blacklisted because of spammers, maintaining relays, incoming spam filters (which are never as good as Google, et al), hardware maintenance and replacment (or expansion if you're doing it using your own internal cloud infrastructure) etc. And that's before you start looking at ensuring it stays secure, patching, minimising downtime etc.
People who think email is easy have never maintained a 'bare metal' email platform, in my experience. And those who have maintained a bare metal email service try to avoid it in future if they can help it...
Steven 'fingers burned' R
Biting the hand that feeds IT
