Background
About a year ago, I started to research Google Apps, an offering from Google which offers corporations free email, calendar, and document management solutions. While the document management isn’t nearly as feature complete as an Office Suite (Microsoft or Open), the email offering was impressive. Our organization had spent thousands upon thousand of dollars on servers, not to mention the even higher cost of legally licensing Windows, Exchange, and Blackberry Enterprise Server. Since our versions were getting a bit long in the tooth, and the cost of upgrading the servers and licenses approaching $25,000, I suggested we move to Google Apps. Everyone in my organization is married to their Microsoft products, so keeping the familiarity of Outlook was a must. About half of our organization has Blackberries, so keeping the same functionality they rely on there was paramount.
Here’s the kicker: I wanted to do this all for free. Continue reading Kicking the Habit: Ditching MS Exchange and Blackberry Enterprise Server for Google Apps