Google Apps has now been available for a couple of years, and has recently been given an official non beta status by Google. I believe that with the improvements that Google have made over the past few years, Google Apps is now a viable, cost effective alternative to other email and office solutions. Here are 5 good reasons why you should consider Google Apps:
1. It's all backed up
All of your e-mail, contacts, diary entries, documents etc are saved on Google's servers. Therefore should you lose your laptop, or suffer a hard drive failure all you need to do is log on to another computer and they are all available to you straight away! No waiting, no restore process, you can just get on with your work. This is my favourite feature of Google Apps, as for small businesses their e-mail, contacts and diary are generally the one thing they can't do without and now they won’t have to. An alternative backup method could cost £10 a month for only 1GB of information. Using Google Apps you will have a whopping 7GB storage available for free (25GB if you use the premier edition for £33 per year).
2. Access it from anywhere
Wherever you have access to the internet, you have access to all of your important information. Maybe you are at a client’s office and need to arrange an appointment, you could check your diary on their PC. Or you can access it all direct from your mobile phone, or direct from the comfort of your desk via your favourite e-mail client (e.g. Outlook).
3. More cost effective than exchange hosting
Many businesses use either their own exchange server, or a hosted exchange server for sending and receiving e-mails as well as keeping track of their contacts and calendars. Hosting your own exchange server can cost thousands of pounds for the initial setup, plus ongoing support and maintenance fees. Subscribing to a hosted exchange service can cost in the region of £10 per month (plus setup fees) with a storage limit of only 2GB. Using Google Apps you get a hosted email service, plus calendar and contacts with a 7GB storage limit for free, or a 25GB storage limit for £33 per year.
4. Built in Antivirus, Anti-Spam, and Message filtering
Google Apps includes built in antivirus, anti spam, and message filtering services (message filtering on premium edition only). This saves you the cost of upgrading and maintaining your own email security and filtering software. (NOTE: you should still maintain good security practices on your individual servers and PC's and at the perimeter of your network).
5. Offline Access
A real concern that many have when using 'cloud' applications, is that if you lost internet connectivity you would lose all of your important information. With Google apps you are able to access all of your data offline so this needn't be a worry.
Summary
There are of course many other advantages and some disadvantages to making the move to Google Apps, but hopefully this covers the big benefits and demonstrates that in the majority of cases it should work out cheaper. There will be many indvidual factors relating to each business that could effect your decision to move to google apps, and you should of course weigh up all of the pros and cons before you make the move.
If you would like a free consultation of the benefits and cost savings that using Google Apps could bring to your organisation please visit our contact us page and either complete the form, or contact us via one of the other methods listed.