Google Apps for Business

Johnny_Fontane

Hi there,

We're thinking of moving our email off our exchange server and into the cloud. I've heard Google have an interesting product. Does anyone have idea of set up costs and monthly costs that we will incur. We have four users here in the office.

Cheers

johnmurph01

http://www.google.com/apps/intl/en-GB/business/features.html

Costs depending on size. Its a good move though but just don't expect the personal touch

listermint

One issue is the client side. If you are using Android devices you will have a pain in your ear.

Why?

Well none of the android version to date support folder sync. Which means you will not have your email folders synchronised automatically.

Not a fan of the email, but maybe this is a exchange limitation on the android client.

qwertz

Read the T&Cs before making a decision.

Do-more

I'm in the process of setting up a web based business and wondering what to do about email. My web developer suggested Google Apps and I searched a bit further myself and found Fusemail.com who appear to provide a very similar solution at a much cheaper price ($2 per user per month versus $5 with Google) has anyone any experience with fusemail?

One concern I have with both solutions is that they place a limit of 2000 outgoing emails per day per user. This would rule out bulk mailings for sales promotions to an opt-in list etc. meaning you would have to use their email marketing solution at extra cost.

Can anyone suggest another solution that would suit a shoe-string start up?

alsiet2011

Do-more wrote: »

I'm in the process of setting up a web based business and wondering what to do about email. My web developer suggested Google Apps and I searched a bit further myself and found Fusemail.com who appear to provide a very similar solution at a much cheaper price ($2 per user per month versus $5 with Google) has anyone any experience with fusemail?

One concern I have with both solutions is that they place a limit of 2000 outgoing emails per day per user. This would rule out bulk mailings for sales promotions to an opt-in list etc. meaning you would have to use their email marketing solution at extra cost.

Can anyone suggest another solution that would suit a shoe-string start up?

there are work arounds for bulk mailing. google groups for business, google apps engine or sending out using smtp if you have your own mail server

Tomtata

Also worth considering is Microsoft Office365

http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/office365/compare-plans.aspx

Google apps is great but coming from Outlook / Exchange can be a major pain for users (depending on the number of users)

alsiet2011

Tomtata wrote: »

Also worth considering is Microsoft Office365

http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/office365/compare-plans.aspx

Google apps is great but coming from Outlook / Exchange can be a major pain for users (depending on the number of users)

Once the initial migration is done u can use the sync tool for outlook to keep it in perfect sync. Painless

Tomtata

alsiet2011 wrote: »

Once the initial migration is done u can use the sync tool for outlook to keep it in perfect sync. Painless

True but if users are just using Outlook then no point in going the Gapps route. There are much cheaper alternatives.

Ctrl Alt Del

We've migrated from Outlook / Exchange to GA.
Found issues with the plugin for sync the Outlook folders !
Some time,not at all,other time only few items,few folders not appearing on some devices.Other times,throwing an error that even Google Support wasn't helpful,even at Premier Business level !

I've had so many times to delete and recreate the profile overnight,due to big email data storage and to keep end user on-line on business times !!
Not so pleased overall . Wasn't able to charge for the work due do the fact that i recommend to switch to GA !

But,other places,working fine,no bother !

I haven't played with Office365,so i cannot say anything !

RangeR

Ctrl Alt Del wrote: »

We've migrated from Outlook / Exchange to GA.
Found issues with the plugin for sync the Outlook folders !
Some time,not at all,other time only few items,few folders not appearing on some devices.Other times,throwing an error that even Google Support wasn't helpful,even at Premier Business level !

I've had so many times to delete and recreate the profile overnight,due to big email data storage and to keep end user on-line on business times !!
Not so pleased overall . Wasn't able to charge for the work due do the fact that i recommend to switch to GA !

But,other places,working fine,no bother !

I haven't played with Office365,so i cannot say anything !

So, it's been a good few months. Would you still recommend GA over O365?

We're looking to dump Mimecast and go to the cloud. I was favouring GA but our IT partner made a heavy argument on O365.

I know all the theory Pros and Cons buit do you or anyone have real world experience on comparing both?

Ctrl Alt Del's experience didn't look promising, tbh.

RichardX13

I've tried both and I must say Microsoft 365 is the way to go, there is so much freedom to do as you wish, and with lync and share point being included along with archiving and litigation hold in the enterprise licenses it really is a straight forward decision. While google make impressive phone and tablet OSs they really have a long way to go to compete with Microsoft in the business environment.

RichardX13

Do-more wrote: »

I'm in the process of setting up a web based business and wondering what to do about email. My web developer suggested Google Apps and I searched a bit further myself and found Fusemail.com who appear to provide a very similar solution at a much cheaper price ($2 per user per month versus $5 with Google) has anyone any experience with fusemail?

One concern I have with both solutions is that they place a limit of 2000 outgoing emails per day per user. This would rule out bulk mailings for sales promotions to an opt-in list etc. meaning you would have to use their email marketing solution at extra cost.

Can anyone suggest another solution that would suit a shoe-string start up?

You can actually pay 3rd party companies to send bulk mail on your behalf googling "email marketing service provider" should return a good few results.

2Shae

Google apps is great but watch out for older versions of outlook. outlook 2007 + is the reccomended. outlook 2003 causes issues with google app sync tool. Also outlook 2013 is not currently supported by the google app sync tool

dahayeser

I like the look of Google Apps for business, plus the security in the knowledge that they are not going to pack up tent and go under any time soon.

The pricing per email address is an issue though. I am involved in a small start up. Ideally wou would have a personal email address each, and email accounts for sales, support and info. Am I right in thinking that Google will count this as 5 email addresses and therefore 5 users and 5 monthly fees?

RangeR

dahayeser wrote: »

I like the look of Google Apps for business, plus the security in the knowledge that they are not going to pack up tent and go under any time soon.

The pricing per email address is an issue though. I am involved in a small start up. Ideally wou would have a personal email address each, and email accounts for sales, support and info. Am I right in thinking that Google will count this as 5 email addresses and therefore 5 users and 5 monthly fees?

No. You are charged per account/user. You can then setup email distribution lists and add users to those lists. You are not charged extra for these.

Mr. G

You can add several aliases to an email account.

The other option is to create a distribution group and add recipients to it.

http://betanews.com/2014/01/10/from-google-apps-to-office-365-why-my-company-ditched-google/

I read this last week & found it interesting. It's a good read for anyone trying to decide between O365 & Google apps.