Our company has used Google Apps for a couple of years now and it was a great decision. Back in 2009 ZAC Solutions started talking to organizations about their email and productivity platforms and we were espousing the virtues of Google Apps. We talked it up and made people aware of all the great things it does, there was just one problem: We were not using it ourselves.

Because we aren’t just a Google reseller, but also a Microsoft reseller, we were taking advantage of some of the benefits of being a Microsoft partner and running an in-house Exchange server. We are also a Dell reseller and we have certified Exchange administrators on staff to manage our environment. So, it seemed that the benefits of going from an in-house environment to the Google cloud were less significant for a company like ours.

After debating the pros and cons, we decided to move forward with migrating from our on-premise solution to Google Apps and honestly we haven’t looked back. The day we switched, we were able to easily transition our users to the new environment with most users embracing the web for Gmail and calendar. Those users that wanted to however, still had the option of using Outlook. We were able to easily setup users' smart phones and computers and we had everyone setup that day.

Our maintenance hours for our messaging and collaboration have gone to zero. We no longer have to manage the e-mail server, SPAM filter, worrying about our servers being properly configured, whitelisted with other email providers (like AOL), updated with security patches, not being used as a relay, running out of storage, backed up, and the list goes on. Instead, Google handles all back-end administration and we simply use Google.

We have also embraced Google Docs for sharing and collaboration. The platform is extremely easy to use and understand and yet it is powerful enough to really enable our users to be more productive. We have recently begun using the Google Clould-connect for Microsoft Office which allows those users who prefer to use Office to automatically save and share documents via the Google cloud.

The device supprt has also been outstanding. Of course you would expect Google Apps to work well with Android devices, but iOS support for Apple devices has always been included and works very well. We have users on Mac, PC, Andriod and iOS here at ZAC Solutions and the ease with which we can transition between devices to do email, view documents, edit calendars and more is superb.

The bottom line from my standpoint is this: If we, as a company who has access to software, hardware and expertise at a lower cost than most, are paying for Google Apps for our own use, I really believe it should be an easy decision for other companies to transition to Google Apps.

P.S. We don’t want to eliminate Microsoft from the conversation, but at the time we made the switch the Office 365 platform was still under development. It is live now and ZAC Solutions definitely supports it as well. It certainly provides many features and benefits over on-premise as well.