Anyone using Google Apps Premier Edition?

Paul_Heery · Paul_Heery's Garage

I was reviewing our projects for the next year and we are contemplating an Exchange upgrade to Exchange 2007. We are not a big shop. We have three existing geographically-dispersed Exchange 2003 servers servicing about 500 accounts. I went through and worked up the costs for licensing (servers and CALs), servers (can’t upgrade-in-place to 2007), migration and training (users and admins). Honestly, the cost of doing this is difficult to justify.

So, I started taking a look at alternatives. Google can give me Google Apps Premier Edition for $50 per user per year. With this we get 25GB of mail storage per account, redundant servers, a 99.9% uptime SLA plus other apps such as Calendar, IM, etc.

Anyone using Premier Edition? If so, please share your experiences. I'm not close to a decision, but I want to weigh the alternatives.

Don Plumley · Don Plumley's Garage

I'm curious too - subscribed.

Paul_Heery · Paul_Heery's Garage

Thanks for bumping this for me Don.

I actually received a call from the local Google Enterprise Manager last night. We had a good discussion about migrating over to their platform, ongoing support, privacy and other issues. Most of my concerns were addressed and backed up with legal agreements.

Now, I'm just looking for someone that can give me some real-world feedback on using the platform.

KaptKaos · 11-11-2008, 08:26 AM

Why move to Exchange 2k7? Why upgrade to Office 2k7? Is there a technical or business reason for the change? Office 2k3 works with Exchange 2k7 afaik.

Also, consider hosted Exchange. It's more, but you keep all of the Exchange functionality, gain blackberry, treo, WM phone support and they offer similar SLAs.

Oracle · 11-11-2008, 01:09 PM

We talked about it but and decided to not even upgrade to Exchange 2007. Support is good until 2013, why upgrade? Nothing but headaches.. Office 2007 is plain difficult for the regular user that has learned where things are after years.. no real gains.

Those online things are a death trap, simply because your confidential info is really out of your control. And you don't know what you're missing until you're screwed and at their mercy.. google is no better than Microsoft and Oracle, they're the same but the on-line version of the evil... IMO

MrScott · 04:37 PM

I've been using it for a few months now.

Web Interface is solid though I'd imagine too big an adjustment for most users. Some hiccups with IMAP, calendar sync/sharing issues with Outlook/iCal to work around, Doc sharing is nice but no real notion of folders.

Coming from hosted (non-Exchange) email I'd recommend it - as close to zero-maintenance as it gets. Considering Exchange has the advantage of a dedicated client app (Outlook) Google's done a pretty good job.

Where Apps has the real advantage is over time it will only improve and the upgrades come for free.