We are starting to get requests for email accounts for people who do not actually work for the company and should not have any network access what so ever. The requests are that these people be able to send and receive emails from the account, so a mail contact that forwards won't accomplish this. We would prefer to not create an AD account for people who are not employees and have no reason to be able to access our network at all, but this doesn't seem to be an option or at least I don't see it. It is assumed that this account would be accessed via OWA, but as far as I am aware that alone means that the mailbox will require an AD account to log into this.
Am I missing something or is there no way to accomplish this without creating an AD account. If I have to create an AD account will I be able to remove the user from all groups, including Domain Users?