Has anyone used gmail and thought awesome, I can search all my mail?
Anyone used Google Calendar and thought why do I use Exchange? or I wish I could share my calendar in the office?
Well check this out GoogleApps
$50/account/year
Includes gmail, calendar, 25GB of storage per account, Google Talk, PostIni, IMAP access to gmail, hosted service, custom domain-names ….
Hmm, makes you scratch your chin.
Tags: google apps, SaaS
You might rub your chin clear off when you look at the various companies the provide M$/Exchange/Outlook->Google migration services. http://www.google.com/enterprise/gallery/apps/migration.html (Oh so dreamy… a world without CrossOver office)
I looked at it and saw a guy who united all his extended family into it. He was already the “family help desk” and decided he could make everyone’s (including his own) life easier by taking over. Like a dozen people with different solutions (gmail, other web mail, pop mail, aol, small and large message archives…) all brought together.
He was able to import old messages and the google apps are configured to pop the old accounts so they don’t have to suddenly get their friends to change their address book entries or visit every profile of every online account.
I’m considering it myself, and wondering if I might include my dad.
Google has a free offering for families and groups. I think the only thing it lacks is the ability to migrate old mail, though with IMAP you could probably do it manually. I set this up for Cal Poly’s InterVarsity group a couple years ago and it’s been working great for them.
http://www.google.com/a/org/
When I looked at this a little while ago, the main issue that I saw is that there is no concept of shared labels / folders. I.e., there is no analog to Exchange Public Folders in Google Apps. And this is arguably the most critical feature that some organizations use Exchange for–storing email in a shared repository.
Google Apps needs to have a common repository for mail that everybody has access to simply. You could argue that Google Groups could potentially be a solution to that. I’m not yet convinced, but could be.
The other issue is the one of security and confidentiality, which is probably becoming less of an issue as the SaaS model takes off and gains mainstream acceptance.