Not your father's hosted email solution

Editor's Note: We're pleased to welcome guest blogger Allen Falcon, CEO and owner of Horizon Info Services, LLC, a Google partner that helps businesses make a fast and easy transition to Google Apps. Horizon's goal is to provide businesses with 1 to 500 employees with best-in-class solutions that are typically only within reach of larger corporations – all at a price they can afford. Horizon Info Services is a Google Enterprise Partner and Authorized Reseller for Google Apps and Google Postini Services.

In addition to Google's communication, collaboration, and security services, Horizon offers a line of online backup and disaster recovery services. Allen is a 20 year information services veteran with CIO level experience for major corporations as well as small and mid-size businesses. Horizon will host a live webcast on Migrating from Microsoft Exchange to Google Apps. Join us Tuesday, August 11 at 12:00 pm PDT / 3:00 pm EDT.

When staying trim makes all the difference

My friend Jeff Lerman of Cold Spring Design – specialists in website design, hosting, and maintenance – was rebuilding the websites for Massachusetts-based Fitness Management Services (FMS) and its two health club properties, Worcester Fitness and Plymouth Fitness. While he was working on the website redesigns, he noticed that the company was struggling with its email service and needed a better solution.

Among other things, the small company was tired of spam and problems with outbound mail flow. Employees also wanted to share calendars, schedule resources, and publish fitness schedules on its website without having to buy more software.

Jeff reviewed our presentation comparing Google Apps with an in-house Microsoft Exchange solution and did the math. Setting up an in-house email system was never going to happen: hardware, software, networking, security, administration, and backups would be too much for a company that must keep its overhead trim. Jeff and Fitness Management Services (FMS) knew right away that a hosted solution was the way to go.

A serious contender in hosted solutions
A hosted solution would provide a fully managed service and infrastructure, simple pricing, no specialized hardware or software to maintain, and no need to add storage capacity or manage complex backups. After reviewing multiple options, they came to a clear decision: Google Apps was the best choice given the capacity, features, and low cost. Other providers offered a mere 4GB of storage space, while Google Apps offered 25GB. And we liked the other features. Google Apps provided integrated instant messaging, VoIP and video, as well as tools for web-based collaboration as part of the package.

The list went on and on – with the pluses in terms of features, capacity, and cost as well as scalability and easy integration all weighing in on the Google Apps side of the balance sheet. We evaluated the feature enhancements and savings potential and shared it with the FMS team.

When Jeff called about Google Apps Premier Edition and put us in touch with Joe Santa Maria, VP of Business Development for FMS, the fit was obvious. By helping FMS implement Google Apps, we could provide them with , hosted email for their staff for about half the cost of other hosted email providers.

We could also provide BlackBerry and iPhone integration and email synchronization for those users with mobile devices – at no additional cost. And we could help migrate data and provide training for users with a wide range of computer skills. We presented our comparison between Google Apps and hosted Microsoft Exchange services and the decision was clear.

With Google Apps, Email is Only the Beginning
Bundling service and support with Google Apps is our passion. It was in our planning assessment, however, that we found a gem. Jeff and Joe mentioned that they were looking for a better way to publish multiple fitness, activity, and program schedules to the company's sites. Joe wanted his staff to be able to update schedules on the fly without having to invest in a scheduling system for the website.

We conducted a quick demonstration of Google Calendar, and the ability to embed documents and content using iframes and publish everything by RSS feed, and the solution for scheduling was set – at no additional cost.

We planned a full-press rollout. Key to our success would be helping users migrate past emails and helping them pick their email client. Given the in-and-out scheduling of staff across three locations, Horizon made multiple on-site visits for demonstrations, training, and when needed, one-on-one coaching. Users picked their preferred client – the Gmail web interface, Outlook, or Thunderbird.

Horizon’s team provided specific instructions and assistance for migrating historical emails as well as using each client with Gmail. While only 20% of the users had personal experience with Gmail, over 2/3 chose the Gmail web interface, taking advantage of the improved search, integrated chat, and robust calendar features. But Google Apps gave users the flexibility to continue with their established inbox system if that is what they wanted. Giving users a choice of email clients smoothed the transition by minimizing change.

Adding Value to Clients' Businesses
Today, the teams at FMS and the fitness centers use email without worries – and with virtually no spam. They rave about the personal, group, and event calendar services and love how emails, calendars and contacts are integrated and synchronized with their iPhones.

We've found that Google Apps Premier Edition is a wonderful way to add value to our clients' businesses. Its flexibility and feature set allows resellers to provide more than just implementation and support – instead, we can dig deeper into the rich feature set of Google Apps to uncover solutions that make noticeable and measurable improvements in the way our clients do business.

If you'd like to learn more, join us on our live webcast:

Migrating from Microsoft Exchange to Google Apps.
Tuesday, August 11, 2009
12:00 pm PDT / 3:00 pm EDT

You can also contact Horizon via our Google Apps-powered website or email me directly.

– Allen Falcon, CEO and owner, Horizon Info Services

Posted by Serena Satyasai, Google Apps Team

Interested in switching from Microsoft Exchange to Google Apps? Please visit this resource site to find more customer stories like this one.