Many IT departments and companies are either currently unaware of, or adopting a “wait and see” approach to cloud computing. Unfortunately the cloud computing concept still seems to be somewhat abstract for some IT professionals who are running flat-out to maintain existing systems. Additionally, current budget and resource constraints at many organisations are preventing network and IT managers the time to adequately explore the benefits that cloud computing could bring to their organisations. In light of this I thought it might be beneficial to bring forward a very specific solution to a very common problem.

Despite the economic slowdown, demands for enterprise messaging, collaboration and storage space continue to grow at a phenomenal pace. IT departments (like everyone else) have had to make do with tighter budgets and this has resulted in reduced capital spending on servers and systems. Paradoxically the reduced spend has caused the total cost of ownership for systems like Microsoft Exchange to grow higher because IT engineers are now spending significantly more time trying to free up storage space and keep older systems running smoothly.

The age old solution to this problem would be to ride out the recession and once the economy gets back on track look at freeing up some budget to get back on the hardware and software upgrade treadmill. However there is another, I believe better solution.

Move your enterprise to Google Apps (Gmail, Google Docs, Etc.)!

I can already hear the screams of heresy coming from the hallways, but before you tie me to a stake, hear me out. I accept that Microsoft Exchange has been the de facto standard for enterprise messaging for many years. When Microsoft Exchange came to prominence it offered a much better solution than pretty much anything else on the market. However, since then the requirement has grown for a myriad of add-ons and extensions to Exchange to scan for viruses, block spam, archive emails, add legal disclaimers, add signatures, filter content, compress attachments, etc. Depending on your environment, the list is pretty staggering. The simple truth is that the add-ons can cost your organisation as much as 50% of the cost of the Exchange environment itself. Indicated T.C.O. figures for Microsoft Exchange vary wildly from $24 to $72 per user / month (median $36), this does not include the listed add-ons which can typically cost $8-$12 extra per user / month.

Enter Google Apps, the price? $50 per user / year ($4.16 per month). For your 50 bucks you get a brand-able solution with, email, calendar, project & team site creation, document and video collaboration & sharing and Google Talk (instant messaging, voice over IP and video conferencing). The solution works with your own domain name(s) and has all the extra features built-in (virus scanning, spam filtering, content filtering, archiving, disclaimers etc, etc.) There are a host of other benefits such as 25 GB email accounts for everyone and best of all it will work through the familiar web client, your outlook client, your iPhone, windows mobile device or your blackberry enterprise server.

Setup of this service is also extremely easy and can be done for a small organisation in a matter of hours or a large organisation in a couple of days. Beyond setting up users initially there is virtually no maintenance with the exception of additions/deletions or other routine changes.

The move from Microsoft Exchange to Google Apps could potentially save your organisation $502 / User / Year.

When I started looking at Google Apps I immediately thought it would be ideal for S.M.E. but I soon found case studies on very significant corporate users (Genentech & G.E.) and Local Governments such as The District of Columbia which has 28,000 employees on the system.

Here is a video on the D.C. Government implementation.

In conclusion, I appreciate that moving your enterprise messaging and collaboration solutions onto the cloud is likely to be an emotive issue but I am finding it difficult to find any significant reason to keep it in-house. I would like to hear your thoughts on this topic (whether you agree or disagree).

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Tags: Cloud Computing, Domains, GMail, Google, Google Apps, Microsoft, Microsoft Exchange, SaaS