Google Apps setup

When you run Google's Outlook Migration Tool, it will automatically create a profile in Outlook that works.  Even if you don't actually do the migration, the tool will set up a profile in Outlook that works with Gmail.

I just looked at the Outlook profile.  It's a MAPI account.

Tool: http://tools.google.com/dlpage/outlookmigration

Does that mean I will have to ask each user to run that tool from their machine?

If I ran a server side Exchange migration tool, will this also setup user on my network so that when they now log on to thier machine and run Outlook, they will be conneting into gmail and not our old Exchange Server?

We migrated about 70 users from Exchange 2003 to Gmail + Google Apps Enterprise a couple months ago.  I did a lot of advance research, don't recall anything about a server-side tool like that.  Everything was oriented toward running the migration tool on each user's machine.  Users can actually do this on their own with some simple instructions.  Basically all they need to know is their Gmail login credentials, and whether they want to migrate Exchange email, calendar, and contacts, or some combination of the 3, or even none of them.  (Of course they also need rights to add a new Outlook profile and install an app).

That's not to say a server-side tool doesn't exist, but I didn't run across one and the client-side migration was working very smoothly for us so I had no need to pursue a different solution.

Also, if users have any .pst files (local or on a server), you need to consider whether those need to be migrated to Gmail, separate from the users' Exchange-based data.

Are you happy with the move from Exchange to Google Apps?  Was your exchange hosted or onsite?