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).

Comments

Why is the FUD FUD?

[Anonymous Coward]

Still sounds pretty valid to me.

Microsft are the acknowledged experts on FUD

[accessbob]

Get the Facts guys...

Only $280k?

[CAIMLAS]

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.

Re:Only $280k?

[steelfood]

I'm still waiting for the Linux version of Active Directory. Until then, I don't think they're going to have an easy time moving away from Exchange.

Re:Only $280k?

[dgatwood]

TFA says it will still cost the city ~$800k to make the move... the $280k is reported to be the savings from dropping what they are currently doing.

The only problem is that Google Docs are not guaranteed. You don't have a contract with Google that says, "We agree to provide this forever." WIth Office, assuming you don't choose to go with their rental model, you have a copy of a piece of software that you can just keep using.

So in five years, when Google realizes that even though Docs is popular, it isn't making them any money, they'll decide to yank it with six months notice. When Boston gets to spend way more than that $280k to move back to an actual purchased office suite on an emergency basis, we'll all say, "So much for big savings."

Software as a service is fine for things that aren't mission-critical. As soon as your workflow starts to depend on it, it's a fool's bargain.

Google Docs and Drive are down...

[mystikkman]

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

Re:Not a smart idea

[MightyMartian]

I guess it depends on what you expect out of an email system. One thing is for sure, Exchange was always a rickety beast, and the level of codependency between Exchange and other elements of Windows over the last few versions have gone through the roof. For basic email and scheduling, I'd gladly leave Exchange behind, but we have a government contract (I'm in Canada) which strictly prohibits the storage of certain highly sensitive data outside of Canada, and the last time I contacted Google about it, they just brushed it off. So, here I am, getting ready to upgrade to Exchange 2013.

Re:Good

[BasilBrush]

You seem to be confusing professional with academic. It's hardly a big surprise you used LaTeX at college. It would be a lot more surprising if you'd been a professional using it.

Re:Yeah, they'll save their 280,000, and more

[Bert64]

Considering Boston are paying them for the service, the likelihood of them dropping the email service is no higher than the likelihood of their ISP dropping their connectivity...
In either case, since the services are standards based they can easily migrate to an alternative, should the need arise.

MS could just as easily drop support for exchange, leaving them with a security nightmare that is intentionally difficult to migrate away from.

Re:Good

[Capt.DrumkenBum]

Excel is pretty good. (I didn't know I could say anything nice about a Microsoft product.)
If you walk past my office, and hear me swearing at my computer chances are I am using word. If you hear me saying "Stop fu*king helping me!" then you know for sure.
It has gotten so bad that when i have to write documentation, I do all my writing in something simple like notepad++, then copy and paste into word. do a little formatting, maybe a screenshot or two, save and send. This method makes Word a lot less painful.

Re:Good

[Frosty Piss]

If you hear me saying "Stop fu*king helping me!" then you know for sure.

You do know that you can customize features like the one you're bitching about? You do know you can turn them off, right? Indeed most of the things that people bitch about with Word are completely customizable. But don't let reality get in the way of your Fan Boi rant...

Re:A better idea...

[foniksonik]

Uh booking meetings in a calendar is ~50% of the average corporate managers daily activity. The other 50% is attending said meetings.

Re:Good

[Kalriath]

We have a 0% message loss rate with Exchange. What's your point? Email is also delivered virtually instantly, provided our internet connection doesn't fail.

Almost like the Exchange administrators wherever you worked were complete imbeciles or something.