Google Apps vs Exchange In-House

Functionality, cost, and user experience all play into the decision to run Google Apps versus Exchange in-house.

Our latest take ... we've added "the user experience" as our 8th consideration. With the addition of Outlook Sync for Google Apps, users can maintain their current client and services and have access to the additional features offered by Google Apps Premier Edition.

See the presentation here.

Mixing Google Docs and MS Office 2007

Our position regarding Google Docs -- including docs, spreadsheets, presentation, and forms -- is as follows:

• Google Docs offer great collaboration capabilities but are not mature enough to replace MS Office or Open Open office for most users
• The formatting and controls in Google Docs are not yet mature enough compared to MS Office features used by intermediate and advanced users

That said, the integration between MS Office and Google Docs is elegant and effective. When uploading MS Office documents, Google docs generally read and maintain formatting and document features, even if you could not create those features directly within Google Docs. Once uploaded, the real-time collaboration -- particularly in docs and spreadsheets -- is effective and efficient.

Recently, Google added support for docx and xlsx formats. MS Office 2007 documents now import easily into docs and spreadsheets.

Click here to learn more.