(FORTUNE Small Business) – SUN COBALT QUBE 3 SERVER www.cobalt.com, $2,099 Would you travel 1,000 miles to go 25 feet? Didn't think so, but that's what most e-mail does as it bounces around the Web. An in-house server lets your memos get there pronto. The Qube features both intra-office and Internet e-mail and optimally supports up to 50 users. It's one of the only servers in its class to include Web mail, allowing employees to check corporate e-mail through the Net. (It also supports all standard e-mail clients.) But be warned: Even with intuitive Web management, running the server still requires some network expertise and ongoing care and feeding.

SAMSUNG SPH-A460 www.sprintpcs.com, $199 Finally, an e-mail-friendly phone. The relatively large six-line display and the blue backlight make reading easy on the eyes; download Sprint's Business Connection service ($2.99 a month) to check your corporate e-mail and manage your desktop e-mail folders and calendar without ever having to sync.

MOTOROLA TALKABOUT T900 www.motorola.com, $200, plus monthly service fees. A BlackBerry can be sour in a business too small to support it. The next best thing? The T900, a two-way for half the price and no server-side worries. Its own pucker feature is that it's not tied to your e-mail: T900 messages come from pager number @skytel.com.

INSIDE THE IN-BOX: E-MAIL SOFTWARE Which e-mail client is right for you? The big three, head-to-head.

YAHOO MAIL

PRICE FREE

E-MAIL MANAGEMENT The drag of no drag-and-drop: It's time-consuming to use folders because you have to send selected e-mails to one folder at a time and wait for the page to reload.

ADDRESS BOOK Contact lists in one click: Quickbuilder feature lists all the people who have sent you mail or you have mailed. Better address book creator than either Eudora or Outlook.

WHAT WE LIKED Great Web-mail design: New navigation features let you get to any sub-section of your mail, calendar, notes, or address book from any other page.

WHAT WE DIDN'T Extras cost extra: Six free MB of server space, but it runs out quickly; 25 MB is $19.99. To check your account with a regular e-mail client is $29.99.

EUDORA 5.1

[PRICE] $39.99

[E-MAIL MANAGEMENT] Better organized than Outlook, it lets you do advanced search--in specific folders and specific message parts, such as headers, attachment names, or the body--from one screen.

[ADDRESS BOOK] Duty-free contacts: Can easily import address books from other e-mail clients, including Outlook, Outlook Express, and Netscape Mail. Can create separate address books.

[WHAT WE LIKED] Easy-to-use, fully featured alternative to the complexity and extras of Outlook; full version available free as long as you can deal with small banner ads.

[WHAT WE DIDN'T] Frames are poorly designed so a lot of potential screen real estate is blank and unusable. Ballyhooed MoodWatch filter to ID racy or mean e-mail is silly.

MICROSOFT OUTLOOK 2002

[PRICE] $109

[E-MAIL MANAGEMENT] Putting the old ones out to pasture: Only program with an AutoArchive feature; it'll keep your active folders neat and tidy by removing old e-mail after a set time.

[ADDRESS BOOK] Integrated with Calendar so that you can click on a contact and see when you've set up any meetings. Detailed contact fields like birthday. Sadly, there's no place for favorite cake flavor.

[WHAT WE LIKED] Give me some of that Microsoft integration: Powerful Word is your writing tool; go to the Web via Internet Explorer in a frame within Outlook.

[WHAT WE DIDN'T] So many features, so little time: Some of the best are hard to find and take a while to figure out how to use. Built-in virus software blocks all .exe files.

ON THE WEB

Email-policy.com Clear guidelines to make sure workers behave in e-mail and keep confidential information secure. It's either this or charm school.

Cybercafes.com You're in Mumbai and need to dial up to get your messages. Which of its 38 cyber-cafes is closest to your hostel? Get that info for any city in the world, as well as the number of computers the cafe has, the price, and hours.

WHAT'S NEXT? Carriers like AT&T and Sprint roll out voice-powered e-mail that reads messages to you.

ESSENTIAL ADD-ONS

FILTERING Client: Nelson Email Organizer, caelo.com, $29.95 Put e-mail in a full nelson. Outlook users can organize in dozens of ways, including to-do mail.

Server: SurfControl E-Mail Filter 4.0, surfcontrol.com, $1,880 for 50-user license Break the wave of e-mail: Control incoming and outgoing mail at the source to stop inappropriate messages.

SPAM PREVENTION Client: SpamKiller, spamkiller.com, $39.95 Auto-complain to abuse lists and cut down on "false positives" with a friends list so that all their messages get through.

Server: Lyris' MailShield, lyris.com, $4,995 Take a sword to junk from "joe," who says "hi" using your shield. Do it with blacklists, or set your own filters.

ANTIVIRUS Client: Norton Antivirus Pro 2002, symantec.com, $69.95 Don't spread e-cooties. Checks incoming and outgoing mail, and its virus list can auto-update every four hours.

Server: IM Antivirus, internetmanager.com, $1,195 for 25-user license Set it and forget it! Auto updates, automatic reporting make enforcing policy a snap.