Gravity Medium

Monday’s Gmail outage scared the crap out of me.

I just moved my entire company over to Google Apps — away from Microsoft Exchange — about 6 weeks ago. One of the scariest parts is the fact that you have no control over the server or services that actually make your e-mail and calendars and everything else “go.” So when e-mail goes down, I’m pretty much as helpless as a basic user, and that stings a bit.

Plus, as a free (”education”) customer, all I can do is send e-mail to support (duh — can’t do that when Gmail is down!) or post messages on their support forum. Sure, there’s a support phone number, but when millions of accounts go offline worldwide, your call won’t get through. Keep that in mind if you evaluate Google Apps. With the exception of today, the experience has been great. But now I’m on edge.

A little good news, though… Google has apologized. Sincerely. Openly. Without dodging the issue or blamestorming. There aren’t many companies that could do this.

Kudos to Google for this kind of clear, honest and authentic apology.

I already feel a little better.

I’ve been remiss in writing for Gravity Medium lately, due to a bunch of things going on in my paid professional life.

We’re still in the midst of a strategic reconfiguration at the office, yet that seems to be slowing down now, as… well, I can’t really explain it without betraying confidences. Basically the process of reviewing the company’s structure and mission has stalled out and I don’t know when, or if, it will re-engage. I’m hopeful that we can startup again before June, but who knows. It’s been quite the roller coaster and at the moment I just want to get off and find a Sno Cone.

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Separately — and way more fun — I’ve been working on moving my company and all its employees over to Google Apps, in the process dumping our Microsoft Exchange e-mail server and Outlook (at least officially).

So here’s the question: Do you have experience with moving your company over to Google Apps, especially away from Exchange and Outlook? If so, I’d like to hear about it either in the comments or via e-mail.

Right now I’m still in the planning and early-adopter transition phase, but in the end I have to migrate about 40 people to the service (which is tiny, I know), moving most of their archived mail to the service. I’ve already run into a couple mail migration glitches and I’m still figuring out how to handle public folders.

In the end, I expect to save anywhere from a few thousand to several thousand dollars per year (electricity, server upkeep, backup management, software licensing, staff time) and get some intangible cultural benefits from pushing the company further online. Instant messaging integrated with the web e-mail client is compelling, as is vast e-mail storage space and the document sharing features of Google Docs.

So let me know if you’re a Google Apps shop. What works? What doesn’t work? Send me your cheers and your jeers for the service. I can share my experiences, too, if that’s helpful.