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Boston Replacing Microsoft Exchange With Google Apps
netbuzz writes "The city of Boston, which employs 20,000 people, has become the latest large organization to switch from Microsoft Exchange to Google Apps. The city estimates that the move will save it $280,000 a year. Microsoft's reaction? 'We believe the citizens of Boston deserve cloud productivity tools that protect their security and privacy. Google's investments in these areas are inadequate, and they lack the proper protections most organizations require.' More and more customers aren't buying that FUD."
Hopefully they'll be more satisfied than Los Angeles was (PDF).
Seems like a pattern. Go google then go microsoft.
What they should have said was, "We believe the citizens of Boston deserve the productivity gains that come from the ability to wildcard search through emails."
They've had a hard time of it lately.
Google apps aren't really that powerful, but then I've never considered any of Microsoft's office products to really be professional tools. Even in college when I wanted to produce papers I'd use some laTeX or DITA editor. Word, Excel and the rest always felt amateurish. If you're going to use poor amateurish WYSIWYG tools you might as well use the free ones.
There is no memory shortage. yes I have heard of XFCE. Go away.
Still sounds pretty valid to me.
Organizations get pretty desperate to cut costs but when they do things like this they end up spending WAY more, both in time and in money.
Get the Facts guys...
Microsoft's reaction? "*heavy breathing* Grrrrrr... I am... very... VERY... displeased with your decision, Boston. *more heavy breathing* VERY... VERY... *turns to lackey* YOU! Start running ballistic calculations for my transcontinental chair! NOW!"
I suspect that number is wildly conservative. That's crazy, when you consider the costs associated with:
* Multiple FT "Exchange Admins"
* Needing people on-staff who actually understand email
* If they were using something like Forefront and/or additional spam services as well (additional $$$)
* Dozens of servers they no longer need to maintain maintain and replace
* Tens of terabytes of fast, redundant storage they no longer need to keep on-premises
Due to the cost of such a large migration (will they be migrating existing mail, I wonder, or just keeping it on a network-mapped share for archival access?) I have to wonder how long this will take.
I'd have thought the per-year savings would be closer to a million than a quarter mil, personally.
~/ssh slashdot.org ssh: connect to host slashdot.org port 22: too many beers
The link that suggests that Los Angeles was unhappy with their switch to Google does not, in fact, say that. The link is to a letter of a consumer group bitching to LA about their switch to Google. Given, by all accounts, things did not go smoothly, but maybe a better link would be this?
I do think that office 365 is a very nice response to cloud office suites but unless there is still a problem since that 2011 letter about the LA contract I don't know how they will break into that market. Google is a name that most IT people think of when they think of cloud processing suites. We started using 365 about 6-8 months ago and it works fantastically in my opinion. I also do know that other people have gone with google though because it's a big name and it does what it says it does. As far as I know there haven't been any complaints about google.
Does anyone know what happened between google and the city of L.A. after this was released? I hadn't heard about it. I would be interested to know what the security issues they had were and if they were able to be resolved. This letter is considerably old in terms of technology advancements.
I'm curious are their client machines windows boxes? Are they then using active directory and what kind of file servers are they using?
Until Google decides to pull the plug. Beware!
“He’s not deformed, he’s just drunk!”
Meanwhile, in delicious irony, Google Docs and Drive are down and inaccessible.
"Google Drive documents list goes empty for users "
http://news.cnet.com/8301-1023_3-57583952-93/google-drive-documents-list-goes-empty-for-users/?part=rss&subj=news&tag=title&utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=statusnet
https://twitter.com/search/realtime?q=google%20drive&src=typd
Really? :hangs head:
Marketingspeak as usual, as Microsoft's investments in these areas are worse than inadequate... they are nonexistant.
I'm a good cook. I'm a fantastic eater. - Steven Brust
That's some pretty bizarre behavior, considering, at least on my personal Google account, I've been on GMail and Google Docs on my desktop, notebook, iPhone and Nexus 7 all at the same bloody time without any issue.
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
Maybe Boston should worry about saving their city instead of saving a paltry quarter million dollars on a stupid exchange system.
Because their email system caused or allowed the bombings?
If we used the "why are we doing X when we have not cured cancer / stopped war / my favorite issue" argument for everything... then all of humankind's effort would be placed into a single thing... leaving us without food, housing, clothing or electricity.
I'm a good cook. I'm a fantastic eater. - Steven Brust
I'm pretty sure hundreds of millions of users are logged into Gmail on a web interface while also using their Android phones, and they don't have all their email accounts locked.
I smell a bullshit astroturfer.
http://blindscribblings.com - Tasty pop-culture in conceptual fashion.
...would be to hire someone competent in *nix and have them set up a TrustedBSD or SELinux Debian/RHEL server with proper Postfix + SQL (virtual domains) and IMAPS/POP3S access. That way there's no worrying about Google pulling the plug, and no worrying about Microsoft shenanigans either. The worst they'd need to worry about is their sysadmin going rogue, but so long as you pay him (or her! I did a smaller version of this a couple of years ago!) well, that shouldn't be an issue.
This is just the first of many state governments that will be abandoning these old, insecure and grossly overpriced Microsoft technologies. There's nothing better than seeing Google beat the shit out of Microsoft.
Could be worse... they could be going to Office 365, like the State of Michigan is doing for its employees.
They killed off one of the better spam filters out there...who's to say once they have all your data, they won't sell it on the open market before killing off those products too? We all know the feds will have an API to see anything they want without a court order...
Go to checktls.com and test outlook.com, hotmail.com and gmail.com. Microsoft does not offer STARTLS, but gmail does. How is transferring email in plain text over the Internet for the NSA to funnel secure? In fact it seems that gmail is the only free webmail provider to use TLS. Not even large Canadian ISPs use TLS. Conspiracy?
It's interesting to see the kind of convoluted side bar going on with LA. While the TFA pointed out Boston is going to use Google Apps, LA seems to be tied up in CSC drudgery. I can't understand how or why it would be so hard to do this kind of project, I mean I do have experience in this area so it doesn't seem so damn complex. Sure, lots of mailboxes, security requirements but that's done day in and day out. Oh wait, CSC is the sub here LOL, never mind.
Groupwise and CSC in the same project? ... Doomed!
Harrison's Postulate - "For every action there is an equal and opposite criticism"
So only pro-Google and anti-Microsoft comments need apply?
I bet you do smell a bullshit astroturfer.
The difficulty was that the FBI changed the rules after the contract was signed between the City & Google. these rule changes made it virtually impossible for Google to meet the FBI security requirements that were part of the contract. This rule change was not envisioned by either side at the outset.
http://breakinggov.com/2011/12/19/los-angeles-ends-google-apps-for-lapd-decision-bigger-than-you/
I believe the estimated savings are very conservative. Still, the summary is also correct in that Google doesn't appear to have appropriate protections for sensitive government data.
MA has requirements for transmission and storage of personal information ... of course the government is NOT required to follow those standards.
Migrating the data is non-trivial for that number of people.
I bet they will retain some MS-Exchange infrastructure for "critical employee use too."
Of course, I'd swap out both google and microsoft solutions for Zimbra, but that is a different article.
Making a ridiculous statement that anyone knows is patently false is the reason I'm calling bullshit.
Again, anyone with any smart phone can test this theory that logging into Gmail on your computer and mobile device at the same time does not lock your account.
http://blindscribblings.com - Tasty pop-culture in conceptual fashion.
What type of Astroturfing business do you operate?
Good luck with that...from what I've heard it's nothing but a nightmare...people hate google and their apps....
Actually, according to the article you supplied a link for, the sticking point that Google failed upon was part of the original requirements. There were changes to some of the FBI's requirements after the signing in 2009, but the changes were not those that Google has failed to deliver upon.
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Seriously, we're talking about Boston, Massachusetts here. Get Jack on the horn and activate Citizens Against Government Waste. That'll fix those pesky Googlers!
And we all also know how hard it is to get any support from Google. We all also know that Google Apps is a bit different that personal GMail accounts. And we also all know how to use Google search to find numerous examples of people complaining of the same problem. Here is one of the top results (telling as it is, none of which are from Google support): Google locked a account without notifying me and this is my reply to tech suppor
My understanding is that Google Apps for your Business has some shortcomings (versus Exchange & Outlook) as far as viewing other staff members' calendars for scheduling meetings and seeing availability. But, given that the City of Boston is making the move, I'm beginning to wonder if this is actually the case. Can someone confirm?
I don't give a fuck about Boston anymore. Closing down the city like that, an treating people like shit. Fuck you!
MS says 'We believe the citizens of Boston deserve cloud productivity tools that protect their security and privacy. Google's investments in these areas are inadequate, and they lack the proper protections most organizations require.'
Why say that goody-goody, patronizing crap? MS, you are understandably pissed off. You also have nothing intelligent to say. Why not just keep quiet? Statements like that are condescending and insulting.
I work for NOAA IT and the entire organization migrated to Google in December 2011. The hardest part of the migration was training users how to use the Google products, even though they work similarly to any other email, calendar, contacts, online document sharing solution out there.
After a year and a half using Google, I have to say I'm pretty happy with their services. Service hiccups are fixed quickly and rarely do they affect all users.
I find the apps to be less mature than MSOffice apps, so occasionally I would edit a document in excel, then import it back to Google, but that's only necessary for rather advanced functionality, or massive amounts of copy-paste that chokes the browser interface.
At the time of the switchover, I was told that of all the cloud storage providers out there in the world, only Google was FIPS-compliant and therefore the only choice for cloud storage for the federal government.
Now I just wish they would whitelist Picasa so we can share photos easily...
The article talks about Gmail. I have observed a large technology company switch from Exchange to Gmail (Seagate). It was a success. No problems and Google provides good support to paid customers.
Everyone should consider ditching Exchange. The UI for e-mail and especially calendar in Gmail is way more intuitive than in Exchange.
My experience with Google Apps is that companies switch expecting it to be the same as Exchange. It is not. several months later they will regret the decision and move back. I have experienced this with several companies both large and small. I have performed those migrations. All are much happier once they are on Office 365. Local exchange servers are going away and going away fast. To me google is NOT the answer.
You just sound like a butthurt cocksucking Google apologist.
1) Boston office employees are mostly sitting at Windows desktops with a maximized Outlook window all day. They're not using Mac's. They're not working remotely. And when you're logged into Windows running Outlook in an AD environment, Exchange works pretty darn well. No connectors or add-ons to worry about.
2) Boston lacks sufficient Exchange expertise in-house, and they haven't hired a dedicated Exchange admin in years. Most of their Exchange management is done by an out-of-town consulting organization which charges an arm and a leg.
3) Big decisions like this come from the top, with political motivation. The mayor of Boston (Tom Menino) definitely had final word in this matter, and his perspective (being someone whose email is all printed out and shown to him by staffers) is totally about the business side, which is that Google probably dangled more promises to open up offices in Boston than Microsoft did.
Biggest question mark is that Boston will have a new mayor in 2014, and it will almost certainly be someone who's accustomed to working and scheduling with Exchange.
I am employed by Burson Masteller? Good to know. When may I expect a check? Anyway, congratulation on a fantastic conspiracy theory. I find it very amusing :)
More and more customers aren't buying that FUD.
But then the summary goes on to explain that another company re-neg'd on this deal... indicating it's not all FUD?
I don't care about gdocs or office, but how could say it's FUD, when LA has switched back to office because of actual - documented - problems?
#OfficeCausedBostonBombings
Two years ago, I worked for an ISP that ran its own email servers. The CEO, who was really an axe-man chosen to divest the lender of its loan, sold our assets to another company that was in the process of going bankrupt. They transferred all our customer email accounts to a corporate gmail account (keeping our domain name) that they had control over and shut down our email servers. A month later, they were toast, but refused to give us the password to the corp gmail account so that we could get email going again, unless we paid them a bunch of money. We contacted Google and explained the situation and demonstrated that we owned and had control over that particular domain. Google was sympathetic, but said that there was nothing that they could do because they outsource all of the corporate gmail stuff to a third party. We had to pay that third party to get control of the customer email accounts for our own domain back.
It was a huge PITA. I wouldn't go anywhere near Google for hosting employee or customer email under my domain with them.
I have used Google Docs products for the last 3-4 years in various ways and I can say this: they suck.
Try to create a spreadsheet with a moderate number of rows and you're toasted, specially if you use any kind of formula.
BTW, everything done using the super Google Chrome browser so there would be no complaints.
none
Google Apps is a mediocre product, neither good or better than anything others offer. Cheaper, maybe ... and that depends on your definition of cheap.
It's not like Microsoft gives a shit about their customers' privacy. It's just that Microsoft sucks at networking. It's as hard for others to get at your data as it is for yourself.
Don't know what Exchange offers, but it's easy to share calendars (dunno if you can make a calendar private and only allow a group of people to view it, without manually adding the people one by one, but yeah), for people to view others' calendars, and to find 'free time for all'.
--- so glad to see Boston is booting the terrorist MicroSlavs out of the city.
The only time I've had an answer to someone from that question it was because AD allowed you to do something under Windows that you could do under Linux without AD.
I.e. AD patched fuckups with Windows.
-choose who has access to which desktops or servers and at what level in a granular or structured way (web admins have admin on web boxes but not mail servers, etc)
On Linux you have a login account or not. Your home directory, being network mounted, moves with you.
Only needed because Windows is incapable.
-choose what machines have what software installed and in what way
This is why computers have a local hard drive. Not even sure what you are saying here. I have three computers, and even the ones with windows on on dual or primary boot have different software installed on it.
-set things like storage quotas (mailbox or otherwise) depending on a user's position/job
Quotas will do that. Since maildir uses a directory/file format on the machine, the quotas can be set to limit how much of the mail server area you're allowed to use. As with the previous one, not sure what you're saying here.
-delegate a login server and storage cache depending on a user's physical location
Why? But this is done by using DHCP when your machine "requests and offer" the local machine can "offer" depending on mac address or physical port. Even windows would do this without AD being needed.
But why would you need that anyway?
-enable and disable OS features (developers get IIS and debugging, people in finance don't)
Since Linux has a path set up and the home directory network mounted, you get differnt features because you installed the software for them.
For all of these, apart possibly from the first, WHY THE HELL ARE THESE NEEDED????
Take the last one for example, if IIS debugging is enabled by the client machine if it's windows, then why should people in finance NOT BE ABLE to run a debugger? They won't know how to or why, but if your admin pops over to check on a problem, then they can run the debugging without having to log them off and log in themselves.
And for the same list of "advantages" WHO THE FUCK WOULD CONFIGURE THEM????
Shit, you and the AD fluffers whine about how it's not easy to configure "out of the box" for Linux Samba or LDAP, but configuring those "features" would be a NIGHTMARE in comparison. So no bugger would bother AT ALL. Especially if there were no real reason to do so.
"more and more customers aren't buying into that FUD" - compare what you can do with Google Apps (Mail) with Outlook to what you can do with Exchange, and you'll easily find there's a lot of functionality that isn't there when using gmail. Google has a LOT of kludges to make things work...
But that's ok - let Boston see for themselves :)
is a nominal 10 bucks a year
wow
for all the head ached, and very, very inferior GUI and user experinece of Gmail, not to mention the security issues, and the politics of having Gov't email running thru a service that looks at mail, they are saving 10 bucks a month
what is the psychology that leads people to dis word, a perfectly fine program ?
Sure, it has idiosyncrasys, but show me a program that doesn't
Sure, it has bugs and fails, but show me complex, or even simple, program that doesn't
I write 10-20 page documents with Auto table of contents, auto table of figures, lots of pasted tiffs, etc and a lot fo custom paragraph level formatting
Works for me, ymmv
(the biggest problem is the inability to group textbox and tiff without a frame)
Yet these same people assert that excel is "pro grade" wtf ?
havn't you guys heard of the London Whale ?
Han't you read of reinhardt and rogoff ?
of the Statistics profs who have for years been publishing papers showing that excel returns incorrect values for std statistical functions ?
Having had a business unit decide they didn't want to pay for their own infrastructure and attempt to use google apps, and then migrate back to their own infrastructure, all I can say is that unless your requirements are very basic, its a non-starter.
I run: Windows, OS X, Linux, FreeBSD. Just because you have a hammer, doesn't mean everything is a nail.
It doesn't work you clown - the OP is right. Many google apps go insane if you login from more than one computer. I really really hate google+ hangouts because of this.
You are a know it all who loves to give advice on how to do things you have never done - shoot yourself in the head.
THANK YOU for adding clarity to what was otherwise looking awfully astroturfy!
There is nothing wrong with yr Internet. Do not attempt to adjust the picture. We are controlling the transmission - NSA
Like Munich?
http://www.h-online.com/open/features/Comment-OpenOffice-s-Tale-of-Two-Cities-1760502.html
Actually it's quite easy. Paid users get a Phone number and email to call, or they can contact the re-seller who can open a case for them. Google use both email and phone to provide support.
The terms are clearly laid out to users of the free version. Community support is available via the admin help forums. Google has staff there that can escalate issues that cannot be fixed by the user. If you want full support you need to sign up to the paid version.
Clearly Google don't lock accounts without reason. They have a few automated systems that check for ToS breaches and suspicious activity outside normal/typical usage. They're might be a few isolated cases, but the vast majority that say they're account was block for no reason, it turns out it was locked due to spamming/password compromised/ inappropriate material (CP). Of course don't expect the article to mention a follow-up to say the president did actually have inappropriate material. Where wouldthat leave the story and errrr....his job.
Area51 - We are watching...