Google plots Exchange escape with Outlook plug-in
Google has developed a way to help companies move onto Google Apps--and away from Microsoft's Exchange e-mail software--without forcing a migration to the Gmail user interface.
Google's Dave Girouard discusses how Google is making a play for more and more business customers for Google Apps.
(Credit: Tom Krazit/CNET News)Microsoft's Outlook has been the dominant e-mail client within the business world for years, and Google's new Apps Sync for Outlook plug-in acknowledges that some business workers just aren't ready to give up that familiar interface, even if their CIOs are anxious to get everybody onto Google's version of the cloud. Businesses who have already signed up for Google Apps Premier Edition--as well as Education Edition customers--will be able to roll out this plug-in across their networks and allow Outlook messages, contacts, and calendar appointments to sync with Google Apps.
Google is trying to expand its presence inside the world's corporate IT departments with products like Google Apps, which the company says offers a cheaper and more reliable alternative to traditional IT software companies. Quoting data from Forrester, Google's David Girouard, president of Enterprise products, said companies who chose to use Google's hosted Gmail service save about $17 per user per month as compared to companies that build and host their own e-mail servers.
However, there apparently is a sizable enough number of workers that refuse to move off Outlook, meaning that IT directors who want to sign up with Google were forced to maintain a Microsoft Exchange server to placate those folks while moving everybody else to Gmail. An alternative where Outlook users are connected to Gmail through IMAP got the job done, but at the expense of a severe performance hit, said Chris Vander Mey, a senior product manager with Google.
Now, they can let those people continue to use Outlook but allow IT managers to move completely away from Exchange servers. "We've made it pretty easy to exchange your Exchange server for Google," Girouard said.
Google's eye is squarely on Microsoft's cozy position in the enterprise when it comes to products such as Google Apps. Around 1.75 million businesses are using Google Apps, Girouard said, although he declined to clarify how many of those businesses are Premier Edition customers.
CIOs invited by Google to a press event in San Francisco were naturally bullish on Google's version of cloud computing, and downplayed any concerns about security, reliability or the loss of a competitive advantage when it comes to giving up control of their IT.
"At most businesses, IT is not core. I'm not in the IT business to make money, I'm here to enable (my company) to win," said Bob Rudy, vice president and CIO for semiconductor designer Avago Technologies in San Jose.
The plug-in only works for Outlook users on Windows; Mac users on Entourage will have to wait.
Tom Krazit writes about the ever-expanding world of Internet search, including Google, Yahoo, online advertising, and portals, as well as the evolution of mobile computing. He has written about traditional PC companies, chip manufacturers, and mobile computers, spending the last three years covering Apple. E-mail Tom. 
gmail doesn't offer half of the functionality of outlook.
Please stop giving free advertising to google-- they're not trendy anymore.. Microsoft is.
HA, HA, HA,HA, HA, HA,HA, HA, HA,HA, HA, HA,HA, HA, HA,HA, HA, HA.... stop it... I think I just peed myself
I mean - about twice more useful features.
If I to factor in all the stupid Outlook bugs M$ refuses to fix for decade - the number might go above 500%.
It's pretty much a fact: Outlook is fugliest piece of [*beep*] out there. To me as software developer, pretty much any other MUA is better than the Outlook. GMail started satisfying my needs perfectly more than 3 years ago already.
1. With Exchange you can recall your email you send out accidentally at any time (as long as the person you send to doesn't open the message). With Gmail you have a window of only a few secs after which that email is gone forever.
2. You can have custom Out of Office auto-reply created using Rules in Outlook. Don't have that in Gmail - only one standard. Exchange is smart enough to only send out Out of Office once to let you know that person is not available. Gmail on the other hand, send 3 msgs in an hour and it will send out the same Out of Office reply 3 times.
3. Exchange allows you to create sub-folders (sub-labels in Gmail terminology) which you CANNOT do in Gmail
4. Integrated with Outlook without any issues. Using Gmail in Outlook with IMAP no doubt works but takes forever to send mail.
5. Exchange can be integrated with Office Communicator which will automatically change your IM status based on your Calendar schedule. You can even suppress the IM notification while you are giving presentations or have anything in full screen. Gtalk is not even close to that.
Even Apple which hates Microsoft more than anyone (maybe a little less than Google) had to step back and include built-in support for Exchange on the iPhone and Snow Leopard in order to tap the corp users.
Well spoken, and something that so many people just don't getk or refuse to acknowledge because of petty hatred.
Preposterous. Sad. But true.
On many occasions I had to bypass corporate policies and use my private GMail account for technical discussions - simply Outlook can't quote and can't send e-mail without botching it (according to setting du jour of our IT). Any kind of decent technical e-mail conversation is impossible with Outlook.
If you pay attention to stock value Google certainly has the momentum so if there was a time to challenge the giant it would be now.
I guess doing evil is now on the list of things. Bunch of liars. I hope Bing gets 90% of the market for Advertising and Search next year, then you will see how quick Google drops everything to go back to where they came from.
Stop it your guys are killin' me... I had no idea this site was so funny.
No more ComedyCentral.com for me. The Cnet posts are the new bright spot in my day...
Besides, why not have the flexibility to plug different software components & services together. Having an Outlook client with a GMail server sounds reasonable. Having non-Outlook clients and an Exchange server sounds reasonable. This is the great thing about competition. Users & companies are given more choices...and ideally lower costs.
open up an access database and right-click LINK to gmail, until that works no gmail in the enterprise- google is a one-trick-pony that _WAS_ trendy until MS woke up about a year ago
-Aaron
It would be great, to have a Microsoft that has to compete on quality & innovation...like every other tech company.
I hope you were joking about this being a feature. Access alone is a joke.
Google is the next Microsoft, except it would be in their interest to not be evil like Microsoft was.
Microsoft is a Windows company which will always requite 70% of their attention.
Best to leave the Web to companies that are 100% dedicated to it.
That way the customer gets to use true innovation, and not stuff that is politically motivated or their to get you back on Windows.
oh, wow-- so what you're saying is that you broke your corporate policies, because you don't understand the difference between plain text, html and rich text email?
you went around corporate policies-- you should get fired!!!
people choose outlook because it's the most powerful tool for the job.
Gmail doesn't support macros-- sorry kids-- but gmail isn't 1/10th of the product that outlook is.
and I think that it's a load of crap that cnet gives google free advertising.
Do not be idiot. I know by heart syntax of HTML, I read once RTF and TNF specs (what are behind "rich text" in Outlook Exchange).
But that doesn't change fact that simple quoting does NOT work in Outlook.
"you went around corporate policies-- you should get fired!!! "
As long as I'm getting my job done - and done far above average - that's not gonna happen. And most of my management is aware that I'm often using whatever tool I find better for a job. It's not approved - but not precisely behind backs of my management. Though definitely behind backs of our generically incompetent IT.
"people choose outlook because it's the most powerful tool for the job."
Never in my 9 years experience with Outlook, I once found a feature which was at least somewhat useful to me. YMMV.
"Gmail doesn't support macros-- sorry kids-- but gmail isn't 1/10th of the product that outlook is."
The point is that I never ever even felt a need for VBA in Gmail. It is has already that much utility already in. You simply do not need macros there. It just works.
With M$ stack, I quite often pulling my hairs, resorting to all possible trick - all just to avoid touching the "VBA" abomination again.
For pure e-mail, Gmail is light years ahead of Outlook.
In the past "cloud computing" was known as "application service provider", and that was over 10 years ago. Not exactly a new revolutionary concept.
All this stupidity is right out of the Dilbert cartoon strip. It is scary when life imitates art.
Gmail has it's use but can't touch exchange, at least no time soon. Only a fool would compare both. Outlook is one of the most powerful software in the office suite. Stop smoking crack and wake up to facts. There are so many powerful features in Outlook that it is impossible to name them all; from tracking every single document, to journal to web and make no mistake about word, excel and the other apps.
Only insane people will say Gmail is better but as I said before; Gmail has it's proper place and use. I am an Exchange professional and I began from version 5.5 all the way to 2007 and can't wait for 2014 version.
Tell me what happen when your Internet connection goes down...blank page of course; unless you has an in house appliance.
Want more proof? Ask IBM about their Domino and while at it; ask Novell about their Group Wise.
Google is powerful; Gmail is great and I have used them from day one. I use "Postini" for all those who don't have a clue. Positni was bought by Google about a year ago and I use that service for (a) external scanning and mail archiving NOT mail boxes or everyday storage. Yes, Postini is great and you will never be black listed as a single domain some times does. Get my drift? If you don't know BO than shut up and investigate before jumping into serious technology issues.
I could go on to many more important aspects, such as sharepoint but why bother when most people sees things no farther than their nose. Until you have worked with Exchange and fully understand the power and flexability, stick with the your thoughts and experience because you are not enterprise ready.
You need to watch this video. Although this article is about Outlook with GMail, an HTML5-based client offers some great possibilities, as well.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VmjxmOtNZCk
Most users are like sheep. Sure they hate change and would ****** up a storm if you removed Outlook from their hands but guess what......in 6 months 98% of them would not care.
When 2010 comes out (or 2014 for you???), 80% of my users (on VDI and Term Servers) will lose Outlook and will only use webmail. All my Mac users will go to Snow Leopard email and DITCH that abomination called Entourage.
Once you get your users on webmail, going to another webmail, it not so har.
Take it for what's it worth.
BTW, microsoft has been offering hosting your company email on their servers. Now they have a competitor.
Gmail is simply not enterprise ready. Things to think of as you move to Gmail.
1. Storage on Exchange would keep IP inhouse. Gmail privace is still up for discussions.
2. Realtime integration and recovery. Gmail have eons to go
3. App plug ins including EPM and SAP workflow support
4. Integration with CMS etc...
I can think of a whole bunch of cons using gmail. Whaile Gmail is good for personal apps, it should stay in the consumer space where a bunch of fan boys can rule the roost. If you are planning to play with the big boys it take more than money.
Yes, exchange is a beast and storage can be a nightmare but if organized properly; it will work smoothly. OWA is also an east way for remote users to get their emails and of course; exchange is wireless capable.
Gmail and Postini are great for anyone who find them full feature; Postini is best for archiving, filtering and other great uses. Bottom line, I like exchange for numerous reasons and I use Gmail for my personal mails. Use what makes your boat float and keep your cost down. I am about to deploy a new exchange 7 with SP2 but based on what I have read and experiment with; Exchange 2010 or as it should be 2014 will be much more friendly to administer. Good luck! Remember to read before you "click" send.
Also, the managers of the Call Center must be able to produce any email sent from a customer and any replies given by any customer service employee. Immediately.
Those are two major requirements to move to Gmail. Can they do this for me?
why would I want to change my email address-- just to be trendy like you broke college students
only people without any real corp experience would even pretend that gmail will take 5% marketshare in the next decade.
no macros, no vba in gmail or http://spreadsheets.google.com means that there is no future for google
Other than that, there is no reason whatsoever (not).
If you really want, you can use the GMail offline features, which allow you, in shaky-connection mode, to be uploading and downloading WHILE YOU ARE WORKING. There is no little Outlook-popup where it says: PLEASE WAIT, downloading mail. It just does it. That is why GMail rules.
uh.. you don't use SQL Server - the worlds most popular database - do you?
SQL Server has innovated more in the past decade-- than everyone else in the history of computing combined.
Windows Vista is awesome. So is Windows 7.
So is Windows XP. So was Windows 2000.
Excel 2007 is the most awesome product in the world
so is VB.net
so is ASP.net
Actually, I just switched to Vistax64 about a month ago and am extremely happy with it. No problems at all (knock on wood).
Since when was it in the best interest of the consumer to feel strongly towards the brand of the tools they use? Wouldn't you just be better off welcoming every type of tool made available to you? It makes no sense to me for someone to badmouth a product unless they happen to work for a competing company.
Outlook is great, except it can tend to be a bit of a memory hog on weaker PCs. Exchange does a great job, except it can be a nightmare to maintain. Many corporations which run Exchange servers often have to also invest in a third-party solution to deal with spam. Add on to the fact that a corporation of 500+ employees often have to cap their email accounts to a few Gigabytes per email account. Then, to give employees access to their email remotely, they have to setup VPN access to the web-based Outlook client, which is not quite as usable as Gmail.
Also, when you look at the cost of owning an Exchange server, maintaining the Exchange server, and keeping the staff necessary to keep it up 99.9% of the time, to keep it responsive, to deal with spam problems and virus problems, etc, etc... it costs well over $50/yr per user. So, while Google Apps may not have all of the bells and whistles of Exchange/Outlook, in this economy it definitely does have a cost advantage. Add on the fact that it requires no maintenance, has built-in virus and spam filters which work better than many third-party solutions, gives 25 Gigabytes of storage per user, and handles all of the security and compliance issues the government requires, then it is often a no-brainer for a lot of companies.
Of course, most people don't like change, good or bad. So, it makes sense that people will still continue to want to use Outlook as their mail client. This is already possible using Google Apps (as it has POP3 and IMAP support,) but clearly this starts adding "maintenance" to a package which was supposed to be maintenance-free. So, this tool by Google is just another step to blur that line. Now, a single person could instantly (and for only $50 per user per year) get a scalable, fast, large-storage email/calendar/task solution to a company of any size.
Expect Microsoft to respond to this by either lowering prices, improving their offerings, or offering new services. This is what makes competition great... it keeps the pace of technology moving forward.
- by GeeeAus June 25, 2009 2:48 AM PDT
- Speaking from what is only my own experience.
- Like this Reply to this comment
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(53 Comments)I've always used Windows and Outlook and I've found it to be a reasonably good contact manager / email client. Exchange is obviously what Outlook is intended for since Microsoft repurposed Outlook after Office 97. Prior to that Outlook wasn't really for Internet mail.
Microsoft has made genuine functionality enhancements to Outlook which are very powerful and assist the user to improve their workflow efficiency. That said recently our company abandoned it's use.
The growing costs and other management / maintenance costs as outlined very eloquently by BIGELLOW were becoming harder and harder to justify.
While the Outlook and Exchange combo afforded some useful functionality, the features gap between these technologies and those offered by other vendors has narrowed significantly in recent years. In the end we deprecated Exchange and migrated to Zimbra.
This has worked out really well for us and affords us a comparable level of function to Exchange without the cost overheads.
In then end we also abandoned Windows and moves to OS X because Vista was troubled and we considered Apple's recent efforts to be more than adequate for our use with less management required.
There were some initial interruptions while we got the system established but now everything works well. We have access to our mail and contacts via a very well done AJAX web client, as well as through our Desktop apps, Mail and iCal.
There are a few managers that continue to use Outlook as a client which the system also plays nice with.
Our solution may not suit all enterprises but that is to be executed as the purpose, budget, scale, size, location and policies of organisations vary widely from one to the next.
Nonetheless we have all we could want and it works efficiently without issue and it's based on open standards which means we can use whatever OS, client, browser etc we like and even have mixed environments.
I suppose the relevance of this to me is that it shows it isn't essential to use Microsoft tools and services exclusively in order to get high demand, high volume business communications in an enterprise. While some may need a feature or two only offered in X vendors package, many will find there is much that is perfectly workable to choose from.
Now Google is expanding the choice again.
When we next change our infrastructure we'll look at this, as it would be nice to remove as many servers from the office as possible in order to rationalise the scale and complexity of our back end.
Having seen how something like Zimbra can provide a connector for allowing users to run Outllook or Mail or whatever they choose, while allowing us to deprecate Exchange, I can foresee many other vendors adopting this kind of approach.
Out managers that do still use Outlook by enlarge haven't noticed any difference as the "face" of their email hasn't changed, even though the back end has. I think this is really neat and it's good to see Google with an offering.
GeeeAus