"Report: Gmail about one-third as expensive as hosted e-mail".. but, we think.. 'You get what you pay for!'

"Report: Gmail about one-third as expensive as hosted e-mail"

http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20090108-report-gmail-about-one-third-as-expensive-as-hosted-e-mail.html

An interesting read, and it has reminded me of the ‘should we be considering saving money by moving to Google Mail instead of using Exchange’ question that is floating around a bit more recently, including at a Corporate level.

Well, it's very important to emphasise that flexibility is the key with Exchange. Google's mail offering may at first glance appear to be ‘cheap’, when compared to similar Exchange hosted offerings, and also, to running Exchange ‘in-house,’ but  it is nowhere near as feature rich and flexible as Exchange.

Remember.. 'You get what you pay for'

Some current 'issues' that I believe exist with Google Mail at present.. (from an Enterprise perspective)

-There's no granularity of mailbox size limits

-Limited client-side rules capability

-Mailboxes can be accessed from any internet connected location - this has security considerations for some organisations

-Limited offline use - Google can  provide an ajax client that enables laptops to have the last 60 days' mail available offline though

-Full clients such as Outlook are supported using the IMAP protocol, this would synchronise mail folders, but not calendars, meaning that a laptop user’s calendar would either be online and visible to those permitted, or offline and invisible

-Authentication - custom integration requires to be written/adopted in order for an Active Directory user ID to be used for Google Mail access

-Collaboration - Google of course provides a full suite of tools for collaboration use, however there is little to no granularity as to which users can use which tools

-Telephony - Google's products do not currently support the SIP protocol for telephony integration

-Using a non-Microsoft mail platform would reduce the tight integration possible with applications such as Sharepoint

-In-house application support. Should a third-party application be in-place which integrates or uses Outlook for mail services, the application would need to be developed in order for it to be able to use Google Mail

-Mobile use – BES access would be via IMAP and BB use would therefore not be as functional

-Google Mail is still in ‘BETA’ !

-Google’s Privacy Policy could (should?) be a concern to some (most?) enterprises

So.. all in all.. right now, Google Mail is good for SMEs, but is far from ready for Corporate adoption at present. There’s no doubt that they’ll be working hard to bridge the gap though!

Some misc. useful Google Mail v Exchange links/info...

http://lifehacker.com/398778/outlook-vs-gmailthe-definitive-comparison

http://community.winsupersite.com/blogs/paul/archive/2008/07/20/outlook-vs-gmail-the-definitive-comparison.aspx

http://www.jkontherun.com/2007/10/maybe-its-time-.html

http://www.linkedin.com/answers/technology/enterprise-software/TCH_ENT/328178-27066483?browseCategory=TCH_ENT

http://www.eweek.com/c/a/Messaging-and-Collaboration/Google-Gmail-Apps-Are-Not-Enterprise-Ready/

A lot of the comments that people have left on these articles are in some cases more interesting/informative than the articles themselves.

Let us know what you think, especially if your company has 'taken the plunge.'