Gmail as email platform?

[Deanna]

We're considering switching our office email to Google (maintaining our own domain but using Gmail as our email server) and I'm wondering if anyone has made the move and has any tips, tricks, or dire warnings to share.

[Jen Hegna]

I am very interested in this topic as well. If you hear of any MN districts, (beyond this discussion), could you send their information to me?

Jen

[Clete]

We looked at it, as well as other Google apps, and there were some features in MS Exhchange/Outlook that we still wanted to use that Google does not (or did not at the time) have. For us it just was not a very good fit. That could change as the IT industry as a whole changes but for now it is still a bit thin on features other then the email client.

We have also talked about using Google apps for word processing and whatnot but we are happy with MS Office and that cost right now. Thanks Clete

[Chip Treen]

Our district would also be very interested in anyone doing this. Our high school students and staff have google docs (and email). Its easy to add others - very tempting as budgets decline.

Chip Treen - North Branch

[Clete]

I just read an article in the IT trades where the City of LA is going to Google mail as their email system. Google stores everything in clouds. It will be interesting to see how their experience plays out moving forward. There certainly are benefits to this approach but we will let LA see how it works first. Thanks Clete

[Chip Treen]

Add the University of Minnesota http://www.oit.umn.edu/google-initiative/ and Macalester College to the Google list. Its not required at the U, but its hard to see how it won't be pretty much campus wide before long.