Google Business Apps vs. Hosted Exchange

dtaharlev, have you had any experience with Google for Business? I, like many other Microsoft techs have experience with Exchange so I'm looking for a comparison to Google Business. Also, I believe it's probably cheaper to outsource Exchange, not keep it in-house--I've seen this sentiment amongst other Exchange techs; once you factor in spam filtering, hardware and consulting fees, for the small business I do believe hosting Exchange elsewhere to be more cost effective. your thoughts?

hi geowrian, i am looking to close this question out. thanks for your comments. my main concern with Google is how it would interface with MS Outlook--no version of Outlook that I know of (2000, 2003 or 2007) works well with IMAP. I do not use POP, ever. And IMAP in Outlook is silly because it doesn't know how to save drafts or sent emails in the correct folder. Outlook also doesn't move deleted emails to the Trash in IMAP, it just puts a line through the email and then you have to "purge". This throws users off too much so I have to use Thunderbird for IMAP. Problem is, Thunderbird doesn't sync contacts and calendar to a phone, and users are used to using Outlook...

any comments on Google's customer support? have you had any experience with outages? there seems to be so few people using this technology, but it looks promising for the price.

thanks!

GoogleApps gives you the capability to use on Blackberry's, Droids, or any other data enabled phone. Also, why pay $25/month when you can pay $50/year per user???? Plus, Google Apps gives you 25GB of storage space. That is more than anyone of your users could POSSIBLY use up their email for the next 10 years with high volume usage. Photographers would still take 3 years to fill up their inbox! The best out their in GoogleApps implementation is http://www.cloudsherpas.com/ and http://www.ltech.com/.

Our company moved to Google Apps. Now we saves hundreds of thousands of dollars on no longer needed EMC Clarion storage. No more Exchange is down crap. We save on the licenses of Outlook since we opted that just using the Firefox/GoogleApps/Internet Explorer 7/8 browser was more efficient and less costly. We still have Word, Excel, Powerpoint, but we migrated out entire Sharepoint site to Google Sites.

Move to GoogleApps. It saved my company so much money it is ridiculous. We got rid of the 3 Exchange administrator's and at $87,000 per year. That alone was worth it!

lol, now that's a great story AbdAlmumin! this is just what i was thinking; however there are some things i still have to consider:

1) how are contacts and calendars shared? as far as i know you can't share contacts on google, although calendar sharing is possible...
2) syncing is a big issue--email is never a problem any service offering IMAP is a sync email service for phones and desktops--however what about calendar and contacts sync between devices? does Google sync contacts and calendars with Blackberry, Droid (in addition to iPhone)?
3) Please also see this question--the accepted answer gives good things to consider before moving to Google:
http://www.experts-exchange.com/Software/Server_Software/Email_Servers/Exchange/Q_24909005.html

i love the fact that there is a forum to discuss this. thanks much for sharing.

goldylamont,

Mannnnn!!!! We have to get you up too speed. You knowledge is outdated. Google has shared contacts in Google Apps Premium Edition. Yes, they push to BB, Droid, iPhone. I have a Droid and iPhone so yes it works. Here is a screenshot of my test corporate account. (Not our corporate account). That responder obviously never implements Google Apps for Enterprises. Maybe a Mom and Pop shop or two, but you can 100% disable advertising in Google Apps. Google does not "sniff" your data. It is called a crawler and it crawls public "websites/blogs/SN stuff", etc. It is not going to crawl your internal corporate data? Are you kidding? This guy needs to get a clue and read and do some implementations first. As far as auditing goes. Google Apps Premium Edition is SOX capable and enabled. That is what the reporting features in Premium are for. Once again...a non-Enterprise user. "Fast and secure email service"...what is this guy a hosting tech????!!! The SSO security authentication in Google is anything above average.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sU6scRn_L-I

READ! We had spam and anti-virus filters GALORE! Symantec, BigIP, etc. We spent hundreds of thousands of dollars on solutions. Postini is king. It KILLED out spam problems. And trust me, we had the enterprise LOCKED DOWN! Now with GoogleApps and PostIni. I NEVER get called anymore.

People say what they know and according to their experience. As a corporate user. Exchange cannot compete with Google Apps. The cost is amazingly low and when you are talking about a lack of need for SAN's, servers, etc. You cannot beat it. People's entire lives are 80-90% of the day through email. How much productivity is lost when the "Exchange is down" or "Exchange Maintenance Day" happens?

Listen, 45 users is nothing. We have ONE department with this many people. Trust me...save yourself some headache, waisted money and downtime. Upgrade to GoogleApps. I cannot tell you how much time I got back into my personal life working as an IT Manager and Sr. Systems Engineer.

I love Google Apps. However, I would note that AbdAlmumin has a vested interest in promoting Google Apps. Not that it's bad (he knows what he is talking about), but opinions may not exactly be two-sided, especially without somebody defending the Exchange option.

Some items with push on Gmail - different phones do support it, and others require applications to sue it. Some phones support true push, and others are still a pull but it appears like a push. A technicality most of the time, but still notable. There's also the issue of browser incompatibilities or business logic requirements that you have no control over since it's all controlled by Google. Also, Add-in support is much stronger with a standalone client like Outlook than Google Apps.

I'm not pushing the Exchange option, I'm just pointing out that it's not such an obvious or one-sided choice for what meets your business' needs.

geowrian is correct. Outlook is great in some instances if you are using ReadNotify, etc if you are heavily into monitoring who is opening your attachments and proposals, etc. I do have a vested interest in GoogleApps. I want technology that works. So...from this standpoint. You are 100% correct. Plus, company's spend too much money on service contracts, network consultants and support staff. Now, let's think about this. $125-175/hour for Exchange, Groupwise, Lotus Notes support and maintenance and upgrades and purchasing of Dell or HP Servers or if you are VERY high speed VMware to put Exchange in a cluster. Throw in an EMC Clarion, EMC AX4, NetApp or Dell Equallogic and the licensing for Symantec Netbackup and Backup Exec and the Windows Server CAL Licensing for 2003/2008 server and the cost of sharepoint and measure that versus $50/year and no need for any of the above. You may have a "Google Apps" consultant or company you work with. However, any IT person in your department worth his salt can figure out Google App Premier Edition in a day.

When you are running a business it is about workflow, cost and productivity. Technology is at the forefront of this. Why spend a bunch of time on the technology when you have a business too run. You don't get ROI on your business because of your Exchange backend. There is loss ROI when it comes to this. This is the scenario that must be evaluated! And...you can still use Outlook with the Google Sync Option. http://www.google.com/apps/intl/en/business/outlook_sync.html

We hve setup interanal SBS for small companies or even separate full blown Exchagne (20 users or lesss offices)

The extra cost for hardware and the licenses for SBS are minimal if you need a decent server for other applications and data storage anyway in house.  We set it up and it runs.  knock on wood we just don't have issues with Excahgne if you leave it alone!

The $1000 per year for Google Apps in 20 user network over time cost just as much as Exchange over time.  YOu lose alot of the beneficial Outlook functions if use hosted or Google it would sound like.

IN our small companies we absoulutely hear the "internet is down or slow" may more than Exchagen or the server is down.

Yahoo for the cloud but we have had nitmares with cloud apps when a CPA loses their internet connection in tax season and there goes the cloud app conncetion etc

There are two sides to everything.  I just don't get the cloud still  there are positives as menitoned in hthis but also draw backs.

thanks  it was intersting string

AbdAlmunin has some valid points but he is way off on costing. He is going ahead and listing all of the storage and support costs for an in-house solution, when the original question was about a HOSTED solution. It is pretty obvious that if you are using a Hosted solution you are not going to be spending on EM Clarion storage or Symantec or NetBackup or any ot the other stuff.So pease, lets compare apples to apples here.
We have spent a lot of time comparing hosting between Microsoft and Google and they both come in (for our company) between $270,000 and $285,000 so the real question is who do you feel more comfortable with, both during and after the migration. Also, remember that there is always the possibilty you might switch back, and you have to be willing to understand if that would be feasible. I am alwasy leery when someone is a "true beleiver" and thinks everyone who questions is a heretic. Google has some fine points, but that does not make Microsoft the Anti-Christ.