What would migrating an Outlook Exchange email system with Google's business Gmail?

February 26, 2009 10:43 PM

What would migrating an Outlook Exchange email system with Google's business Gmail?

Google's Gmail for business seems like it has some potential and I am in the process of possibly converting the company!

http://www.google.com/apps/intl/en/business/messaging.html

Any advice on what could be involved such as drawbacks or implementation process or method will be useful.

Thanks mefi.

posted by gttommy to computers & internet (7 comments total)

A major drawback, when compared to my Outlook/Mail Client environment, is the inability to disable threading of messages in Gmail. Depending on your business, preferences of users/etc, this may or may not be a major issue. It was a deal breaker for me (not to be able to use Gmail).
posted by effigy at 11:14 PM on February 26

One drawback is Google stores all your data, so if you get sued, and Google gets subpoenaed they'll probably hand over the data. And how easy or difficult would it be to migrate away from Google in the future? Does Google provide tools for that? If they do, will those tools stay in place forever?
posted by delmoi at 11:14 PM on February 26

effigy: You can delete messages from Gmail now, it's been possible for years.
posted by delmoi at 11:15 PM on February 26

Oh wait you said threading not deleting. Weird that I would read it that way. But you can use IMAP with Gmail which would theoretically give you the ability to use a 'regular' email client with a non-threaded view.
posted by delmoi at 11:18 PM on February 26

implementation process:

both google and exchange can have "IMAP" turned on (as delmoi noted for google). Use a regular email client, add two IMAP accounts to it - one pointing to your exchange server, one to google. Then, drag all the folders etc over from exchange to google, and you get to keep all your old mail once you turn off exchange.
posted by DreamerFi at 5:16 AM on February 27

delmoi: Your concern may be solved by Postini in the corporate version of Gmail. Obviously you'd pay for this, but I would assume that any business seriously considering Gmail would want to pay for the corporate version. It looks like Postini allows you to create archives of messages.
posted by odinsdream at 5:45 AM on February 27

How well does Google/Gmail handle calendaring? Meeting invites? Shared calendars, shared address books, global address books? Syncing to mobile devices?

(I dunno, but these would be big questions in my mind)
posted by jkaczor at 12:37 PM on February 27