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GMail for Domains vs. MS Live Office?

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the give-your-own-review dept.

utlemming asks: "With the announcement of GMail for Domains and Microsoft Live Office, both in beta, business users will soon have a choice in hosted email solutions and my organization was lucky enough to be selected for both beta programs. Seeing major differences between the two in terms of usability, ease to setup and features, I have written this a review of both products based on my testing. This leads me to my question: what experiences have you had with GMail for Domains and Microsoft Live Office, and how have they worked with your organization?"

46 comments

  1. Lack of corporate paranoia? by RingDev · · Score: 3, Interesting

    With all the news lately with emails and documents being used for all sorts of legal proceedings, and the ability of the government to subpoena service providers, do companies really want to outsource such a huge chunk of liability?

    -Rick

    --
    "Most people in the U.S. wouldn't know they live in a tyrannical state if it walked up and grabbed their junk." - MyFirs
    1. Re:Lack of corporate paranoia? by moochfish · · Score: 2, Insightful

      If someone wanted to subpena your emails, it'll be the difference between your company defending itself or Google doing it for you. Either way, if a court says hand 'em over, your emails are out of your control. Google doesn't want to hand over its clients emails because it hurts its image and lowers consumer trust. So I will go out on a limb here and say Google is probably going to defend the privacy of your emails as rigorously as your company would.

    2. Re:Lack of corporate paranoia? by RingDev · · Score: 1

      true, but if the emails are on your system, you can delete them. If they are on Google's system, there is no way to ensure the message has been erased.

      I'm not saying a company should be looking to scrub their backups after receiving a subpoena, but if you delete an email that could be used in a legal proceeding (prior to the request) you have the safety of knowing that that email/document is gone.

      -Rick

      --
      "Most people in the U.S. wouldn't know they live in a tyrannical state if it walked up and grabbed their junk." - MyFirs
    3. Re:Lack of corporate paranoia? by tonsofpcs · · Score: 1

      And you would be wrong. http://yro.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=06/03/17/15 48216

      --
      Video Production Support
    4. Re:Lack of corporate paranoia? by Elwood+P+Dowd · · Score: 1

      You ignore the very plausible option that Google could, at its discretion, give the Feds whatever they ask for without a court order.

      Of course I haven't heard about them doing that. But other companies certainly have. If you're serious about keeping your email private, store it on your own server (not a vhost, you moron), and DELETE IT.

      --

      There are no trails. There are no trees out here.
    5. Re:Lack of corporate paranoia? by booch · · Score: 2, Informative

      If you delete your emails after you receive a subpoena, you should go to jail. That's destroying evidence, and if you get caught, you probably WILL go to jail.

      The trick a lot of companies do is to delete email BEFORE they get a subpoena. It's questionable if you know a subpoena is coming. So the new thing is to set a policy where all email must be deleted after 90 days or something. Plausible deniability. This is something that can generally be enforced if you handle your own email. If you have Google handle it, it's hard to be sure that they've really deleted it when you hit the delete button.

      --
      Software sucks. Open Source sucks less.
    6. Re:Lack of corporate paranoia? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      But ... but ... but ... Eric "Fucking pussy2 Schmidt says "do good not evil". Isn't this true? OMG!

      -- a very concerned voter and christian

    7. Re:Lack of corporate paranoia? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      But not an American voter.

      Get out, you Eurotrash.

  2. Re:Fuck. My Eyes! by apollosfire · · Score: 2, Funny

    Fuck My Eyes!

    ..I'd rather not.

  3. off topic by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    I think slashdot jumped the gun on the april fools. I saw this image load up and everything was pink on the main page. ponies

    1. Re:off topic by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      You spelled shark wrong.

  4. Re:Thank goodness for the Firefox extension. by networkBoy · · Score: 1

    WTF was that?
    -nB

    --
    whois gawk date unzip strip find touch finger mount join nice man top fsck grep eject more yes exit umount sleep dump
  5. 4/1 is here by GMT? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    ponder ponder.

  6. Re:Thank goodness for the Firefox extension. by wbren · · Score: 1

    Nowadays, a few days before April Fools Day I turn off styles in my web browser, for situations such as this. It's become a grim, but necessary ritual. Before CSS became big I used Lynx for that awkward time.

    --
    -William Brendel
  7. Sweet Jesus it burns!!!111!!! by hodagacz · · Score: 0, Offtopic

    My eyes! My eyes!

    1. Re:Sweet Jesus it burns!!!111!!! by Dr+Caleb · · Score: 1

      It's not even the 1st yet!!

      It's going to be a long Saturday . . .

      --
      "History doesn't repeat itself, but it does rhyme." Mark Twain
    2. Re:Sweet Jesus it burns!!!111!!! by YU+Nicks+NE+Way · · Score: 1

      OMGFWTF

      BBQ -- as in "it roasted my eyes"

  8. Gmail for domains is ok... by rob1980 · · Score: 1

    I changed my domain's mail service a few days ago and I guess it's been ok. But honestly, I'm not seeing a killer app here - I don't know why I should continue to use their service over Dreamhost's.

    1. Re:Gmail for domains is ok... by DevanJedi · · Score: 1

      Maybe because it's multi-GB per email address for free?

    2. Re:Gmail for domains is ok... by rob1980 · · Score: 1

      Good call - I'm in a special situation which I probably shouldn't go around applying to everything. My Dreamhost account was set up during a sale they were running that gives me their business level plan for $10 a month. My online mailbox storage with Dreamhost across all mailboxes is just over 100gb, and I get an additional 640mb per week.

  9. This is what passes for a review? by pythas · · Score: 3, Insightful

    OMG M$ SUX THIS IS TERRIBLE I CAN'T EVEN FIGUrE OUT HOW TO LOGIN.

    OH GOOGLE I LOVE YOU HAVE MY BABY.

    I've saved the rest of you the trouble of reading all the way through this trash.

  10. April's fool? Nah by Kuku_monroe · · Score: 0

    Slashdot is just following Nintendo steps to attract more female users. This is the future

    --
    //WR
  11. ugh by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    it's not fucking april fools yet you assholes!
    I just opened up Slashdot and everyone noticed cuz it's glowing pink - they all came over to look at saw PONIES and started laughing at me.

    1. Re:ugh by BeanThere · · Score: 1

      it's not fucking april fools yet you assholes!

      It is where I am. In fact that pink kicked in at exactly midnight GMT+0.

  12. A few points by sethadam1 · · Score: 3, Informative

    I have beta tested both of these as well, and let me correct a few things here:

    1. This is BS. I am on a Mac, and my domain is administered while I'm in Camino. I'm logged in right now, the URL is https://domains.live.com/Manage/managedomains.aspx and it works just fine.

    2. I have used Google's domain hosting as well, and it's nice, but it's very minimalistic at this point. It is cool that you can change the Gmail logo to your company's logo though.

    As for users signing in, yes, they do have to sign in via hotmail. It says so RIGHT IN THE ADMIN AREA. This guy couldn't find the big text on the left side that says "Users may access their email accounts by signing in to http://www.hotmail.com./"

    WEAK. This review needs to be nixed. No digg.

    1. Re:A few points by sethadam1 · · Score: 2, Informative

      And another point, you do NOT have to hand over control of your domain to Microsoft, unless you are a total numskull. You just add a regular old MX record as well as a TXT record for their SPF spam protection. You don't give them control of your domain, and you can still add as many still A records and CNAMEs as you want.

      This story is fraught with errors.

    2. Re:A few points by ditto999999999999999 · · Score: 1

      On thing that bothered me was that the author said he managed to do it in a couple of hours. Unless everyone of his users is a pop3, it would be a nightmare to migrate. Fuck, I run a small email server for scholarly activity that has maybe 30-40 users and I nearly have a heart attack thinking about migrating to G for D.

      Ditto

    3. Re:A few points by gstoddart · · Score: 1
      1. This is BS. I am on a Mac, and my domain is administered while I'm in Camino. I'm logged in right now, the URL is https://domains.live.com/Manage/managedomains.aspx and it works just fine.

      Hmmm ....

      You are not signed in. You must first sign in to access this service.

      Sign In

      If you are a new to this service you may go straight to the Signup Domain page to get free e-mail service for a domain you already own.

      Exactly what I've come to expect from a Microsoft hosted thing. Offline, proprietary, and an error message. ;-)
      --
      Lost at C:>. Found at C.
    4. Re:A few points by sethadam1 · · Score: 1

      Hmmm .... You are not signed in. You must first sign in to access this service.

      Um, I hate to be obvious, but did you sign in????

      Once you're approved, you can go here and follow the links: http://domains.live.com/

    5. Re:A few points by gstoddart · · Score: 0, Flamebait
      Um, I hate to be obvious, but did you sign in????

      Umm, I hate to be obvious, but did you miss the sarcasm?

      And, really, WTF is the point of putting up an URL that other people can't get to?

      Here's my l337 website ...
      --
      Lost at C:>. Found at C.
  13. Re:Fuck. My Eyes! by TWX · · Score: 1
    "Fuck My Eyes!"
    "..I'd rather not."

    Hey, a hooker with a glass eye is a popular thing in extreme porno that wants to go beyond triple...
    --
    Do not look into laser with remaining eye.
  14. Re:Thank goodness for the Firefox extension. by sethadam1 · · Score: 1

    Ummm... or you could just play along and enjoy the fun, ya stiffcoat. Jeez.

  15. FUCK by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    FUCK

  16. GMail is better for ponies... by techmuse · · Score: 1

    The average efficiency of pony fans is much higher among Gmail users than among Office Live users.

  17. Re:Thank goodness for the Firefox extension. by iced_773 · · Score: 1


    Yeah, but my Greasemonkey script for collapsing comment trees isn't working. I then tried turning on the tree-collapsing capability in the Slashdotter extension, but the link that collapses replies didn't show up. Is anyone else having this problem?

    If messing with comment collapsing is an April Fools prank, that was poor taste, Taco.

  18. Hosted GMail by whoop · · Score: 1

    I don't see too many "corporate" users going to gmail's hosting service, honestly. It is perfect though for simple family email types. Buy a domain for $10, point the MX record to gmail and voila, everyone in the house has decent email. Google also has simple blogging, pages, etc to compliment the domain. If they let you umbrella those into a domain, that'd be perfect for this type of person.

    Those of us who want more "serious" stuff can set up a Linux box, manage a domain and all the services.

  19. must support IMAP, data retention policies by penguin-collective · · Score: 1

    In order to be a reasonable business choice, GMail for domains must support IMAP and (even more importantly) e-mail retention policies. E-mail retention policies both should allow the administrator to set how long E-mail must be retained and after what time E-mail is to be deleted. Furthermore, Google must guarantee that the E-mail is deleted for good.

    1. Re:must support IMAP, data retention policies by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0
      Don't be silly, everyone knows Gmail's data retention policy in its entirety:
      Yes.
  20. Haven't used by Apreche · · Score: 1

    I haven't used the Microsoft product yet, but I signed up with GMail for domains a week or so ago. As someone who has been using Thunderbird / IMAP for years I can say I'm not going back unless they make me. However, I do wish I could get the GMail notifier to work with GMail for domains. I need to be notified if a computer e-mails me when something is wrong!

    --
    The GeekNights podcast is going strong. Listen!
    1. Re:Haven't used by kwark · · Score: 1

      And that is why I will keep running my own stuff: full control.

  21. Pink by tsa · · Score: 1

    Poor poster, his serious Ask Slashdot is all pink. He can forget being taken serious today!

    --

    -- Cheers!

  22. US.COM email is now available (using Hotmail) by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    We haven't tried the Google mail program, but we have built a nice product using the Microsoft mail program. We've arranged it so that anyone can use email addresses like YourName@US.COM. For years we've sold sub domains on the US.COM suffix. Now in cooperation with Microsoft we are making the email addresses available. See the details at http://www.us.com/ .

    As far as working with Microsoft, it is a little extra work to get it all working but we think the security is excellent.