Look Before You Leap

Look Before You Leap intoGoogle AppsBefore you bet your business on Google Apps,make sure you understand what they really cost.Published: December 2010

Table of ContentsSummary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3Deployment Costs Migrating Email Data . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4 Directory and Address Book Integration and Synchronization . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5 Integrating Microsoft Outlook with Gmail, Google Talk, and Google videoconferencing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6 Supporting mobile users . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7IT Support Costs Gaps in the Google Service Level Agreement . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8 IT Administration . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9 Help Desk Support . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10 Security and Archiving . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11User Training and File Fidelity Costs User Training . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12 File Fidelity Problems . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13Conclusion Total Cost of Ownership . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15Google Apps Migration Checklist . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16

SummaryAs an IT professional these days, you probably have to do more with less than ever before. You may have tostruggle to find the right balance between reducing costs, maintaining operational efficiency, and providing allthe capabilities your workforce needs. You also may be struggling to define your strategy for cloud computing.You may be considering adopting Google But many IT organizations have found that • Google Apps may require costlyApps to balance the requirements of Google Apps cause them extra, hidden add-on applications, even foryour messaging and collaboration costs. Organizations that most small- and medium-sizedinfrastructure. On the surface, Google have evaluated Google Apps have found organizations.Apps may seem like acceptable that the projected versus actual costs of • Google Apps cost far more thanreplacements for enterprise-grade switching to Google Apps their claimed $50/user annualproducts such as Microsoft Exchange may greatly increase their total cost of fee because making them workServer or Microsoft Office. The $50 annual ownership (TCO). In particular, these IT acceptably for most organizationslicense fee for Google Apps Premier organizations have found that: requires paying for add-onEdition (GAPE) may seem low enough to applications, extra support measures,justify ripping out your current office- and more IT workers.productivity, messaging, and collaborationinfrastructure and starting anew withsolutions in the cloud.In this paper, we discuss three major hidden-cost areas associated with Google Apps: Deployment IT Support User Training & Costs Costs File Fidelity Costs • Migrating data such as email • Understanding Google’s • Training and supporting users messages, contacts, and Service Level Agreement (SLA) who switch email and office- documents productivity suites • Providing 24/7 phone support • Supporting directory • Maintaining file fidelity when • Delegating more than one integration and password users convert and exchange level of administrator access synchronization documents • Supporting email-preservation • Providing offline access compliance and archiving • Supporting Microsoft Office • Providing enhanced security Outlook as a client • Supporting mobile usersIn the Appendix, we provide a checklist to help you identify the potential hidden costs if your organization switches to Google Apps.After evaluating your requirements against these hidden costs, we believe you will conclude that these costs are too high.We also believe that you will conclude that Microsoft offers your organization better office productivity, messaging, and collaborationsolutions than Google. Microsoft has worked with software users for more than 25 years and fully understands the needs of users inevery setting from the home office to the enterprise. Microsoft developed and supports one of the world’s most familiar productivityproducts—Microsoft Office—to help users everywhere work productively. With Microsoft Office 365, Microsoft offers organizations thefamiliar usability of both on-premises and cloud-based Microsoft Office applications. Look Before You Leap into Google Apps | 3

Deployment CostsMigrating Email DataCustomers who deploy Google Apps must have their IT teams migrate email messages, contacts, tasks,folders, distribution lists, and other data from messaging solutions such as Microsoft Exchange Serverto Google Apps. The costs associated with this migration are not included in the $50 annual license feeadvertised by Google. Country: New Zealand Data-migration costs not included with Google Apps: Size: 80 employees Contacts Public folders Industry: Sports If you are migrating from Outlook, you If your organization used Exchange Read the case study: must install and run Google Apps Sync for public folders to share documents, you http://www.microsoft.com/ Outlook to migrate contacts from must manually upload all documents and casestudies/Case_Study_Detail. Microsoft Outlook. Also, there is no easy mark them as shared in Google Apps, aspx?CaseStudyID=4000002644 way to universally manage organization- or purchase a third-party application to wide contacts without using a third-party allow access to these documents on the product. network. “Migrating to Google Tasks Folders with unusual names Apps would have You cannot migrate Tasks from Outlook to Google Apps, so you must recreate them. Outlook folders with names that include unusual characters won’t migrate to been extremely Gmail. disruptive, with long Distribution Lists Google Apps Sync won’t migrate distri- Hidden Costs outage periods and bution lists and groups, so users have to The time that IT administrators and users a significant risk of maintain them locally in Outlook. If you spend to migrate data and the cost of remove Outlook, lists and groups are third-party applications to migrate data. losing data during gone permanently. For example, Google Marketplace lists an the transfer process… Exchange to Google Apps Migrator that costs $20 per user. The cost increases At first, Google Apps greatly if you want to migrate data other seemed cheaper than email. than other solutions, but upon closer Did you know? examination, these If you move from a Microsoft on-premises solution to a cloud-based risks were simply too email infrastructure with Microsoft Exchange Online and Microsoft Outlook, you don’t have to worry about data migration problems. high.” Microsoft Exchange Online was specifically architected to work with - Jeremy Burrows, IT head, Microsoft Outlook as an email client. New Zealand Rugby Union Look Before You Leap into Google Apps | 4

Deployment CostsDirectory and Address Book Integration andSynchronizationBecause Google Apps offer limited directory services and synchronization, the burden shifts to ITdepartments and end users, who often have to deploy third-party applications to synchronize data andcontacts. Also, Google Apps do not provide a native single-sign-on service so employees have to rememberextra user IDs and passwords, and IT must purchase or write additional software code to create the capability. Country: Canada Hidden Directory, address-book integration, and synchronization costs not included with Size: 500 employees Google Apps: Industry: Automotive, Farm, and Active Directory Permanent Password Recreational Vehicles You must download a separate utility in Synchroniz ation Read the case study: Google Apps to integrate Active Directory Employees have a separate user name and http://www.microsoft.com/ password for network access and Google casestudies/Case_Study_Detail. One-Way Directory Apps. To enable single sign-on, you must aspx?casestudyid=4000006831 Synchroniz ation use a third-party application or enlist a You can only sync Google Apps down to developer to customize. your on-premises LDAP directory. You must also download an open-source tool Outlook Free/Busy “Google Apps didn’t to complete the synchronization. If employees use Outlook to interface with allow for single- Gmail, the calendar is not instantaneously Global Address Book synchronized to show employees’ free/ sign-on service or Synchroniz ation busy time. user migration and You must set up a server to synchronize your LDAP server with Google Apps. Hidden Costs couldn’t help us Additionally, once you’ve synchronized The time IT or employees spend to centrally manage our the directory, you still cannot view that synchronize directories and other infor- complete directory in Google Apps. It mation, and the cost to buy extra ap- multiple domains. In only allows you to discover someone plications to synchronize directories and addition, downloading using search. manage users. For example, MyOneLogin provides single sign-on service for Google via IMAP or POP was Apps, and costs up to $36 per user per proving to be too slow year. Promevo gPanel provides shared contacts management and costs $8 per and unreliable for domain account per year. our large amounts of email.” Did you know? - Jonathan Pisarczyk, Information Systems Group Manager, Microsoft Exchange fully supports Outlook’s features, whether you Phaeton Automotive Group deploy Exchange on premises or in the cloud. Look Before You Leap into Google Apps | 5

Deployment CostsUtilizing Microsoft Outlook with Gmail, Google Talk,and Google videoconferencingCustomers who utilize Google Apps with Microsoft Outlook have to manage several add-ins. Even withthose add-ins, employees who want to continue to use Outlook’s rich, familiar features may typically findthemselves struggling to get their calendars and email folders to work properly, leading to lost productivity. Country: United States hidden costs of integrating Microsoft Outlook with Gmail, Google Talk, and Google Size: 30 employees videoconferencing: Industry: Media and Entertainment—Advertising Google Apps Sync for Google Talk. Employees must manu- for Outlook ally install the add-in to achieve functional Read the case study: This add-in allows Outlook to work with parity with some other video conferenc- http://www.microsoft.com/ Google Apps, but it only provides partial ing experiences. casestudies/Case_Study_Detail. synchronization and may require employ- aspx?CaseStudyID=4000008299 ees to manage two different inboxes. Hidden Costs Additional management costs and busi- Google Talk ness disruption. IT teams must install, “The Outlook Google IM/Chat is not integrated with Outlook and requires employees to install test, deploy, manage, and support these Google Apps client-side add-ins, or Connector for Google and deploy the Google Talk rich client to employees must install them themselves. Apps was dreadfully receive email notifications locally. These add-ins don’t always work as well as Google claims. According to PCWorld, broken. As an IT Google Ge ars in an article titled Google Apps Sync Director, it was a This application supported offline synchronization of Gmail and Google Docs. for Outlook Gets Mixed Reviews, “IDG News Service, over the course of several nightmare for me. However, Google has suspended Google weeks and even after enlisting the help There were periods Gears offline support for Google Docs as of May 3, 2010. (For more information, see of Google’s public relations department, couldn’t find one Apps administrator when not a day went this link.) whose employer isn’t a Google Apps by when somebody reseller or integrator [who was] willing to speak favorably about the Outlook sync Google Talk Video- wasn’t reporting an Conferencing Add-In tool.” issue with it. When we This client-side connector provides video conferencing with special add-in software switched to Microsoft, my phone stopped Did you know? ringing. Now I can Users can synchronize files with Microsoft SharePoint® Online in Office focus on other things.” 365, to work offline. When reconnected, SharePoint transmits only - Jake Harris, Director of IT, Aisle7 delta changes in documents. And with Microsoft Exchange Online and Microsoft Outlook, users can work offline without worrying about what will work and what won’t. Look Before You Leap into Google Apps | 6

Deployment CostsSupporting mobile usersMany workers today use their mobile phones to manage their email, calendars, and contacts when they areout of the office. With Google Apps, IT may have to install additional applications to make sure that datasynchronizes with servers back at the office so their employees have the latest information. Country: United States hidden costs of Mobile-support with Google Apps: Size: 25 employees Bl ackBerry Hidden Costs Synchroniz ation Third-party products and additional serv- Industry: IT Services Google Apps has a synchronization prob- ers to support mobile synchronization: lem with recurring meetings. If your orga- Read the case study: • CompanionLink for Google: Syncs nization is using a Blackberry Enterprise http://www.microsoft.com/ Outlook contacts, calendars, and Server (BES), you must still maintain this casestudies/Case_Study_Detail. tasks with a Google account., but server if you deploy Google Apps. A BES aspx?casestudyid=4000002896 doesn’t work with BlackBerry phones: cloud solution can reduce the complex- $39.95/user annually ity of having to maintain this server on premises, but costs extra. • ExchangeMyMail: To host more than “Microsoft Exchange 500 BlackBerry phones: $120/user Online is a much iPhone and Other Smartphone annually cleaner solution Synchroniz ation than Google Apps Google has developed Google Sync software that you can install on some mobile because everything is devices. As of October 2010, this applica- from one provider— tion was still in beta and had many limita- tions such as lack of full-search capability Microsoft—so I don’t of Gmail on iPhones. (For more informa- need a lot of third- tion, see this link.) party applications to link computers, cell phones, and laptops.” Did you know? Microsoft Office 365 Enterprise Plans provide full Exchange ActiveSync - JW Keller, President, Datatune support with more than 40+ policy settings for IT. In addition, we offer fully hosted BES Support so that you can offload the hardware and software upgrades. We provide IT with a direct BES admin console directly from our service. Look Before You Leap into Google Apps | 7

IT support CostsGaps in the Google Service Level AgreementUnderstanding what is covered by Google‘s SLA is sometimes difficult, but vitally important for evaluatingany cloud providers offering. Country: United States hidden costs caused by Gaps in the Google Apps Premiere Edition (GAPE) SLA: Size: 5,000 employees Does not include downtime of Does not cover Industry: Industrial Equipment less than 10 minutes e xperimental fe atures and Machinery You can suffer multiple Google Apps The GAPE SLA does not cover experi- Read the case study: downtimes of less than 10 minutes mental features released through Google http://www.microsoft.com/ without recourse. Google Apps could be Labs. Moreover, experimental Google casestudies/Case_Study_Detail. unavailable for more than 21 hours in a Labs features are the most likely to cause aspx?CaseStudyID=4000007851 single day, but by the terms of the GAPE problems for end users and require action SLA, this constitutes 0% downtime. by IT teams. Offers service credits af ter Does not include unlimited “Service with Google the contr act terms 24/ 7 phone support was just poor. I spent GAPE’s remedies for service downtime consist of service credits after your Google offers phone support on weekends and holidays only for “P1” (Critical countless hours contract expires rather than any remedy Impact – Service Unusable in Production) on the phone with during the term of your relationship. requests, and only if more than half of users are affected. Google does not respond them, issues went Limits Google’s e xposure on weekends or holidays for “P2” (High unresolved, and I Google strictly limits any potential remedy Impact – Service Use Severely Impaired) and lower-priority requests. to a maximum of 15 days of credit even if had to spend too their services are down for more than 36 much time manually hours in a month which translates to 95% Hidden Costs uptime. The costs of risk exposure to your business creating blacklists of with Google’s SLA are unique to each domains that their business and therefore you should work with your legal counsel and risk manage- service was clearly ment officers to discuss. missing.” - Dave Booher, lead Windows administrator, Sunbelt Rentals Did you know? Microsoft Office 365 Enterprise Plans provide 24x7x365 multi-lingual phone support and 99.9% availability SLA that is financially backed with up to 100% credit back during the term of your contract. The Microsoft SLA begins counting the first minute of any downtime towards our 99.9% availability terms. Microsoft Office 365 does not release beta features into mission-critical environments. Look Before You Leap into Google Apps | 8

IT support CostsIT AdministrationIT teams generally find they have to spend additional time maintaining Google Apps, mainly because of lackingsupport from Google. IT teams are often unable to find answers because of this limited support. IT teams alsohave to spend more time supporting third-party products and client-side connectors for new and existing users. Country: England hidden IT administration costs with Google Apps: Size: Nearly 4,000 employees Unannounced Fe ature Fault y Reporting and Logging Rollout/Pullback Administrators and auditors have to de- Industry: Construction Google often releases new features that pend on other products to see acceptable Supervision and Management require additional support, and often reports. For example, Google does not Services ends support for features such as Google provide logs that let you see when and Gears or Google Wave with little or no which user was deleted. Read the case study: warning. http://www.microsoft.com/ casestudies/Case_Study_Detail. L ack of Universal aspx?casestudyid=4000006478 Fr agmented Administr ation management You can control some features and func- IT cannot manage enterprise-wide con- tions through Google Apps, but others tacts such as customers, partners, and require Postini or another third-party vendors. “We asked [Google] application for you to manage them. basic questions about Additionally, Google lacks macros and scripts for common administrative tasks Inefficient Issue Resolution When users experience a problem in things like network such as forcing a password reset or updat- GAPE, they may usually have to visit a administration rights… ing IMAP and POP settings for all users. forum to resolve it. Because GAPE is new, support information is often incomplete and we found we User Renaming on Google forums. were logging a lot of It’s difficult to change employee names, export calendar items, export contacts, Hidden Costs calls. The information download email messages, create a new Extra time to maintain Google Apps and just isn’t out there on account, import calendar items, import contacts, upload email messages, and its third-party products beyond resolving typical Help Desk issues. Other costs the Internet yet.” delete an account. include lost productivity and the cost and support for third-party products needed - Tina Parfitt, head of IT, No Delegating Administr ator to fill gaps. For example, you can use VINCI PLC Privileges Power Panel for Google Apps for advanced Administrators have full control or no IT management to delegate administrative control over accounts. You cannot del- tasks, run macros and scripts for common egate tasks or provide detailed control for tasks, and import and manage shared common tasks such as password resets. contacts at a cost of $8 per user per year. Anyone who has administrator access can GeeRenamer helps simplify the renaming decommission an entire email service. of users at a price of $19 per user (free for first three renames). Did you know? Office 365 Enterprise Plans provide powerful role-based administrator access so that IT can set granular access policy. In addition, PowerShell Look Before You Leap into Google Apps | 9 is supported for remote command line scripting of common tasks.

IT support CostsHelp Desk SupportWhile a browser-based application should relieve burdens for IT teams, many customers who deploy GoogleApps could find that Help Desk employees face additional questions about how to complete simple taskswith Google Apps. Customers may find that menus are unfamiliar, and often the features that employeesneed most do not exist. The CNN Money article “The Hidden Cost of Google Apps” says, “When you’rerunning a business, you’re paying your people while they struggle through this cultural shift to Web-basedapplications—and that can be very costly... It requires more direct handholding and ongoing maintenance.” Country: England hidden Help Desk support costs with Google Apps: Missing features: Google Apps features often do not work like the familiar features in Size: 1800 employees the Microsoft Office suite, so with a migration from Microsoft, Help Desk personnel have Industry: Publishing to support users as they relearn how to do simple tasks. For example: Read the case study: Using Cut, Copy, and limited access to contacts, and no offline http://www.microsoft.com/ Paste commands across experience for documents, spreadsheets, casestudies/Case_Study_Detail. applic ations drawings, and presentations. Using Gmail aspx?casestudyid=4000007764 Though about 20% of user clicks in office offline requires software that Google no productivity applications are Cut/Copy/ longer supports: Google Gears. Paste commands, you cannot directly Cut/ Copy/Paste among Google Docs, spread- Receiving at tachments “I wasn’t pleased that sheets, and presentations. Gmail users cannot receive attachments in new [Google Apps] calendar invitations created by Microsoft Working offline Outlook users. functionality could Google Apps offers an offline experience pop up tomorrow, for email, a view-only offline calendar, and our Help Ad hoc and disappearing features: Google adds features to Google Apps haphazardly Desk wouldn’t be and without warning, so Help Desk personnel are often unprepared to support those features. And Google sometimes abandons features after introducing them. For example: prepared to help with Google Ge ars Hidden Costs problems.” Google abandoned support for this The time that Help Desk employees spend browser add-in on May 4, 2010. IT teams to answer employees’ questions about - Alison Ross, must deploy this unsupported add-in for Google Apps, or the cost of providing Head of Service Support, every user who wants to work offline, and third-party support. For example, Suite/ Trader Media Group Help Desk personnel must support it. Apps Gold provides unlimited support for Google Apps for $599/user annually. Did you know? Office 365 provides the familiar user experience of Microsoft Office on the PC, Phone or Browser. In addition, Microsoft’s tools are designed to work natively without the need of adapters and connectors which enables consistent and expected behavior for users. Look Before You Leap into Google Apps | 10

IT support CostsSecurity and ArchivingGoogle Apps came from Google’s consumer division and weren’t architected to have enterprise-gradesecurity and archiving capabilities. Security and archiving are not available for Google Apps unless you payfor extra services to secure email and meet legal requirements for email and document retention. Country: United States hidden Security and archiving costs with Google Apps: Size: 56,000 employees Encryption Data Recovery Industry: Government Employees cannot encrypt messages Google does not guarantee backup of Read the case study: containing sensitive information. email for data recovery. http://www.microsoft.com/ casestudies/Case_Study_Detail. Privac y Hidden Costs aspx?CaseStudyID=4000004879 Email message recipients can easily edit, The cost of hosted email security and forward, or print sensitive information. archiving services. Postini, which Google acquired in 2007, provides some level Information Rights of email security and 10 years of email “The security of our Management retention for Gmail, costs $45/user an- communications is Email message recipients can easily edit, nually. Sendmail Sentrion Email Security forward, or print sensitive information. Appliance for Google Apps, priced from paramount. Google $22,500, can add a higher level of security couldn’t guarantee “Off the Record” Chat for Gmail. EchoSign Electronic Signature Employees can conduct instant messaging for Google Apps begins at $359/user an- that security… [They] sessions where portions of conversations nually. weren’t ready to can be conducted without any IT record. handle the state’s Data Retention Policies business.” Your organization’s data retention policies are trumped by Google’s terms of service. - Mike Binkley, Director of Office For example, Google retains the rights to Automation Services, maintain all copies of information for as Michigan Department of IT long as they require. Did you know? Microsoft Exchange with Outlook lets users mark emails with Digital Signatures, enforce Digital Rights Management, and flag messages by type. Microsoft Exchange, whether deployed on premises or in the cloud, fully supports security for mobile phone users so your IT team can take advantage of layered security defenses. In addition, Microsoft Office supports watermarking of documents which can be rendered in the Office Web Applications alerting users of any ‘confidential’ or ‘private’ status of a document. Look Before You Leap into Google Apps | 11

User Training and File Fidelity CostsUser TrainingGoogle Apps offer very basic functionality that lacks consistent document conversion and import/exportcapabilities and limited flexibility, and exhibits frequent feature gaps and bugs. Because Google Apps translatesinbound documents into a proprietary HTML format, users can experience substantial formatting problems andpotential data loss during data and document migrations and conversions. Many Google Apps users find thateven routine tasks take more time than necessary because of the unfamiliar interface and meager online help. Country: France Google Apps anomalies with which users often need training: Size: 3,500 employees Multiple open Google Apps • Rules and Signatures do not migrate Industry: Financial Services windows to Gmail. Read the case study: Whenever users switch between Mail, • Gmail does not support Outlook http://www.microsoft.com/ Calendar, Documents, and other ap- categories. casestudies/Case_Study_Detail. plications in Google Apps, they open a • Gmail does not support “Out of aspx?casestudyid=4000005041 new Web browser window. This quickly Office” status in Outlook. becomes confusing for users who acci- Outlook flags become stars in Gmail, and dentally open multiple Mail and Calendar follow-up reminders are lost. windows at the same time. “In my judgment, Hidden Costs Google Apps is not Outlook /Gmail incompatibilities Training fees for both users and IT staff. Third-party companies offer training solu- an enterprise-class Because Gmail does not fully support tions that range in price from $125/hour solution. It’s a Microsoft Outlook, users experience unusual problems when using Outlook as a per user (Suite-Apps) to packaged solutions starting at $2,499 (Dito). In addition, consumer solution, Gmail client. For example: you need to train your IT staff, which given and we did not want • Because email messages are Google’s lack of flexibility may require training on how not to disable services or to risk our business on automatically combined into threads functionality in Google Apps. Google only based on their subject line, users see it.” a new folder for every email thread allows two security groups (Administrators and Users) and your Help Desk most likely and have to scroll through dozens - Laurent Debes, Director of IT needs more rights and more detailed or scores of folders to return to that Production & Integration, control than users. What happens when a thread. Credit Immobilier de France user with too many rights takes down your • Executable attachments (including entire implementation with an accidental self-extracting .zip files) are not click? copied to Gmail. Did you know? Microsoft Exchange with Outlook lets users mark emails with Digital Microsoft Office Online applications have the familiar, intuitive look and feel of the Microsoft Office Fluent User interface and offer essen- tial editing capabilities with no formatting or data loss. Look Before You Leap into Google Apps | 12

User Training and File Fidelity CostsFile Fidelity ProblemsEmployees who use Google Docs to open a document created in Microsoft Office often find that the formatlooks different in Google Docs. Because Google limits file sizes and converts documents to HTML, GoogleApps documents can be unreadable.When switching to Google Apps, employees waste time figuring out how to perform simple tasks such as printing and copying andpasting. The InfoWorld article “Office Suites in the Cloud: Microsoft Web Apps versus Google Docs and Zoho” examined how Google Docsand Office Web Apps handle documents. Below are some of the problems InfoWorld found with Google Docs: Country: Spain File fidelity problems with Google Apps: Gmail Google Spre adsheets Size: 50 employees • Users can’t see a presence icon to • Charts cannot be copied from Google Industry: Consulting respond quickly with an IM instead of Spreadsheets and pasted into Google an email. docs Read the case study: • Users can’t use “Out of Office” status • Formatting options are rudimentary. http://www.microsoft.com/ label in Gmail, and can’t share folders. casestudies/Case_Study_Detail. Importing other spre adsheets • Users must forward separate message aspx?CaseStudyID=4000003809 • Images and formatting beyond threads to send or forward Gmail simple cell sizing and shading are messages. discarded. Google Docs • Google Apps can’t import “You want the • No automated spell checking or spreadsheets larger than 1MB. interaction with the grammar checking exists. • No document version control as in • Charts often disappear entirely. tools you need to Microsoft SharePoint exists. Google Presentations • Images, text, and data from Google do your work to feel Importing documents Docs and Google Spreadsheets frictionless—and • Tab stops, paragraph spacing, page margins, and images move cannot be pasted into Google presentations. when we had a dozen unexpectedly. Hidden costs tools and passwords • Google Apps can’t import documents larger than 500KB. Many hours or days of lost productivity and user interfaces it • Revisions made by using the Track per user, and potentially lost business. Employees who use Gmail spend extra was not frictionless at Changes and Comments features are jumbled together as plain text. time tracking down email messages that all.” • Page headers and footers are have not synchronized correctly. If they use Outlook as a front-end to Gmail, converted to inline text at the top of - Emiliano Duch, CEO, they have to scroll through seemingly the document. Competitiveness endless duplicated folders to find mes- • Watermarks such as such as sages. Employees can lose time resolving CONFIDENTIAL, DO NOT COPY, document fidelity issues—a significant DRAFT, PERSONAL, TOP SECRET, and cost even when only minor corrections are URGENT disappear. needed. Organizations can lose business when it takes longer to complete documents that don’t look professional. Look Before You Leap into Google Apps | 13

User Training and File Fidelity CostsFile Fidelity Problems - continuedDocument compatibility problem after uploading a Microsoft Word file inGoogle DocsWord Document Word document imported into google docs Did you know? Microsoft Office Online applications in Office 365 can preserve a document’s layout, graphics, and complex watermark so user content remains intact. Look Before You Leap into Google Apps | 14

ConclusionWhat might the following cost your organization?• Retraining users to complete simple, If the total cost of those items is more than $50/user per year, then Google Apps might common computing tasks not be the best choice for your organization. For example, based just on the necessary• Losing employee productivity until add-ins and connectors that we’ve mentioned in this paper, in a scenario where you they’re fully retrained need to migrate a mobile user from Microsoft Exchange to Google Apps in an organiza-• Buying new add-ons for tion that has more than 500 mobile users, it would cost, at a minimum: compatibility, security, and compliance Total Cost of Ownership• Training or hiring IT people to support new add-on applications One-time cost per user with Annual cost per user with Google Apps Google Apps Country: Denmark Exchange to Google Apps $20 Google Apps $50 Migrator Size: 25 employees GeeRenamer $19 MyOneLogin $36 Industry: IT Services Google Apps Help Desk Read the case study: $30 Promevo gPanel $8 Support Services http://www.microsoft.com/ casestudies/Case_Study_Detail. End-user training Varies Power Panel for Google Apps $8 aspx?casestudyid=4000004063 Google Apps Help Desk IT staff training Varies $599 Support Services Lost user productivity Varies Postini $30 “Yes, we might have saved one or two Total: $69 Total: $731 dollars per month Microsoft provides customers like you with enterprise-class solutions that work with each going with Google other based on the requirements of your organization. Microsoft understands the needs of the enterprise-class user with stringent compliance requirements as well as the needs Apps, but it wasn’t of the small business that needs an easier way for employees to communicate. Microsoft worth it. Selecting developed and supports one of the world’s most familiar software products—Microsoft Office—to help employees everywhere work productively. In a ComputerWorld blog software that makes it article, Dave Giroud, the head of the Google division that develops Google Apps said, more difficult to work “We wouldn’t ask people to get rid of Microsoft Office and use Google Docs because it is not mature yet.” If one of Google’s top executives admits that, why would you want to is the wrong way to use Google Apps? save money.” - Anders Trolle-Schultz, Principal, SaaS-it Consult Did you know? Microsoft Office 365 has offerings that are available for as little as $2/user per month? To find out more, visit: http://office365.microsoft.com Look Before You Leap into Google Apps | 15

Google Apps Migration ChecklistAs you evaluate Google Apps, determine if you have any of the requirements listed below. If you answer ‘Yes’ to any ofthese, the annual cost for GAPE will likely be more than Google’s claimed $50 per user annually. Requirement Need? Possible Costs Migrating data such as • IT time spent migrating data and resolving discrepancies email messages, contacts, • Third-party tools like Exchange to Google Apps Migrator calendar, and documents See Migrating Email Data • IT time spent synchronizing directories and other servers Directory integration and • Third-party tools MyOneLogin that provides Single Sign On password synchronization See Directory and Address Book Integration and Synchronization • Not available as it is with Microsoft Outlook Offline access See Integrating Microsoft Outlook with Gmail, Google Talk, and Google videoconferencing • IT time to install and support add-in Google Apps Sync for Outlook • Since it only provides partial synchronization, employees may have to Outlook client spend time managing two different inboxes. See Integrating Microsoft Outlook with Gmail, Google Talk, and Google videoconferencing • IT time supporting mobile synchronization Mobile users • Third-party tools such as CompanionLink which helps integrate calendars See Supporting mobile users • IT time maintaining Google Apps 24/7 Phone Support • Third-party Help Desk support to help resolve typical user issues See IT Administration • Third-party tool such as Power Panel for Google Apps for role-based Delegating delegation of administrator privileges Administrator • Downtime caused by administrator error Privileges See IT Administration Document compliance • Third-party tools like Postini for hosted security and archiving services and Archiving See Security and Archiving • Third-party tools like SendMail or EchoSign Electronic Signature Enhanced Security for Google Apps that can provide added level of security for Gmail See Security and Archiving Exchanging documents with • Employees will likely lose time resolving document fidelity issues, leading customers, partners, and to costly delays and unprofessional documents internally See File Fidelity • Employee time spent in training Training users when switching • IT time developing and delivering training email and office productivity • Third-party costs for training delivery such as Suite-Apps or Dito suite See Training Costs and IT Administration Look Before You Leap into Google Apps | 16

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Look Before You Leap

by Microsoft Education UK on Apr 23, 2012

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