Do i have to buy a new machine to install Mountain Lion?

I have a MacBook and have snow leopard. Will I not be able to upgrade to Mountain Lion? It is frustrating since moving to iCloud and now my Mac mail server will not work unless I have mountain lion, as I was told by Apple sales person. Also, I have paid for what was once .mac and then MobileMe for years and now with the move to iCloud, I would still pay the $99 annual fee just to have my Mac mail account. I have other email options but I like the Mac one for family use.

Are there any options for other than to buy a new machine which I was not expecting do to for another couple of years or so. I like my MacBook. It was purchased 1/2007.

That seems to be a bad answer for all pre-2008 MacBook users who were used to using the mail function and now can't. I don't need the other features of mountain lion.