What do do when the sky turns gray and those Google clouds turn into thunder and lightning
Posted on 06 August 2008, at 12:00 pm, by Wayne Schulz
In May 2008 I moved all of my email from a hosted Exchange provider over to Google. My reasons for doing so were largely to gain access to the data from anywhere and offload all the searching, indexing and hosting of my data files. My use of Google Apps for Domains has largely been flawless. I’ve also migrated all my Office Documents to the online Apps provided by Google. The ability to log into my documents, calendar and email from any Internet computer is a real timesaver. This morning I was reading Chris Brogan’s site and he has a story about how Google suddenly cut off access to GMAIL and DOCS for one of his associates. It took several lengthy attempts for access to be restored (it ultimately was). Nick’s article contains several good suggestions, mainly that anyone on Google Apps should write down the technical support access information BEFORE they experience any issues with Google. This morning I’ve been busy taking a few steps to make sure that I have the information needed in case Google were to suddenly lock me out of my account. His article is short and to the point. If you use Google Apps extensively, it’s a must read. UPDATE 8-7-08: Another interesting article concerning a recent Google Apps outage.
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August 6th, 2008 at 12:46 pm
I understand why you moved your Office documents to Google to gain access anywhere, but am unclear why you also moved your email, since Outlook Web Access (OWA) gives you the same web-based access to your email, calendar, contacts, and tasks. (And actually, hosted SharePoint, which is often offered with hosted Exchange, would give you access to your data as well).
Personally, I love having a hosted Exchange account. I use Outlook on my desktop and tablet PCs and OWA at work. Everywhere else I use my Windows Mobile phone. My wife uses her iPod Touch (upgraded to 2.0) to access her account. Yes, it’s not free like Google, but it’s far more flexible and well worth the money, in my opinion.
August 6th, 2008 at 1:53 pm
I moved from a hosted Exchange service to Google Apps for a number of reason –
First, I too LOVED Hosted Exchange. I used Exchangemymail and their uptime and quality was never an issue. It is IMHO the only way to use Exchange for a small business (under 10 mailboxes).
Here’s why I moved:
1. It’s true that OWA (Outlook Web Access) gives you access to your Outlook emails via a think web client. However at the time you could only access a VERY limited subset of your emails via the web. Searching historical emails was impossible (I think this has changed with am upgrade to the capabilities of OWA).
I found it rather 1980S-ish that I couldn’t log in via the web and search all my emails.
2. I did not want to continue synching my ENTIRE email box to my desktop. I found when I synched that much Outlook data that it became much more prone to data corruption. On the version of Outlook I used (2003) – I believe all that data was stored in one big data file which always seemed to corrupt at the worst possible moment. Indeed during my period of using Exchange I had Outlook corrupt on me probably three or four times (just once is too many times imho).
3. I found that Blackberry Internet Service (about $10 to $15 cheaper per month) would offer push email via Google
4. Google incorporates probably the world’s best spam filters (for which I paid an additional fee to my Exchange provider)
5. The biggest reason (aka – straw that broke the camel’s back) that I left? Searching through Outlook email was a huge PITA. I tried several programs — X1, Google Desktop. They were all pretty good — but every last one of them had this annoying habit of grinding away at my hard disk at the least opportune time. I started to see slowdowns in performance which grew worse and worse. (Note: I believe that some of this has improved with newer versions of Exchange/Outlook as well).
6. My hosted Exchange limited me to some pitifully small inbox — I want to say around 500 MB. My Google Apps for Domain inbox is 25 GB in size.
There are some big limitations to Google.
1. Searching Google emails does not search inside attachments (not a big deal for me but could be for others).
2. If something goes wrong with your Google account — I am worried that the support may take a long time to respond (based largely on articles such as this one).
On a scale of 1 to 10 I say that my experience with Google Mail has been at the 8 level. There are several times where I will notice temporary “unavailable” messages. These are frustrating but typically pass quickly (under 5 minutes).
I don’t think I would consider going back to MS Exchange unless there was something at work which required it.
August 6th, 2008 at 2:10 pm
I wrote a piece on this for GD back in April, the articile, The Problems and Challenges with Software as a Service,” can be seen here:
http://www.geardiary.com/2008/.....a-service/
I think you’re bumping into some of what I was talking about (tho I skimmed your post, as I am at work…)