Verizon Acquires Yahoo! — Trouble for Business Subscribers?
With Verizon’s acquisition of the Yahoo! core business services underway, subscribers to Aabaco Small Business — the business email solution from Yahoo! — face uncertain times. While there is no indication of what Verizon may do with the Aabaco Small Business services, the focus of the Verizon acquisition is clearly Yahoo! services that Verizon can roll into its upstart digital media business. As reported by The Wall Street Journal and others, Verizon is acquiring Yahoo! for the content and audience. Business email and ecommerce services are clearly not top of mind.
Priced from $34.95 to $119.40 per year, Aabaco’s email service is as a basic webmail solution. The service includes spam/virus protection, filtering, and forwarding, although the web interface is simple and the service only supports POP email clients (no IMAP service). The service does not include calendar, IM/Chat, video calling services, file storage, and other services typically found in more robust email and communication suites.
Many Aabaco customers may choose to wait and see how the acquisition plays out and, therefore, how long they can continue to get support and service on an aging platform that lacks competitive features.
For many others, the acquisition is a great time to explore other solutions for cloud-based services. Both Google for Work and Microsoft Office 365 expand upon basic email services with robust communication and collaboration features and tools, and both integrate with a variety of marketing and ecommerce platforms.
For those with Aabaco websites and ecommerce service subscriptions, exploring Shopify, ProStores, and others may offer more robust, modern, and cost-effective solutions. The migration, however, is more complex as it involves multiple services.
We recommend that Aabaco subscribers begin looking at alternatives. Whether or not you make a change now or in the future, understanding your options along with the relevant merits and costs, empowers you to make better decisions. You can also be ready to make your move if/when the time is right.
Are you an Aabaco customer interested in exploring alternatives? Offering both Google for Work and Microsoft Cloud solutions, our Cloud Advisors can provide you with an unbiased assessment of your options. Contact us for a free consultation.
