Why “Going Google” can save you money
A couple months ago Google started a campaign about their Google Apps products called “Go Google”. We have no affiliation with them but I must say that we have been using their products and I can provide some insight about how it is to live with an online suite of productivity and collaboration tools.
Google Apps is basically designed to work for every type of organization: from a small group to a big corporations. If you are a small business or group with up to 50 members you can opt for the Standard Edition which is completely free and provides most of the features you could want. If you need more users or more that 7gb of storage per user you can choose the Premier Edition.
These Google Apps that we are referring to include: Email, Calendar, Contacts, Word processor, Spreadsheet, Presentations, Google talk and Google Sites. In Microsoft terms this is Exchange + Office + Messenger.
If you ever asked about Exchange you probably know that the cost of a MS Exchange setup can cost thousands of dollars and you need quite some time and knowledge to get it right. And if your team grows over time you need to spend more in Exchange licenses.
Having that in mind , Google Apps is a huge money saver. But it not only it has an advantage from the money point of view, it also saves time in the setup (it’s almost as easy as opening a gmail account), and it has a great interface for web collaboration. You can use it online in any computer in the world and you don’t have to rely on the IT team or your internet connection. Google had some outages but they are minor compared with the things that can go wrong with your own setup.
They even have interfaces for iPhone and free POP/IMAP email so you can read it in Outlook.
For me it was a no brainer, it works great and it is really easy to manage.
