I have Google apps set up for my business domain, but it only has two users. I also have an apps account with a startup that I work with where we have about nine users. My understanding is that the free apps accounts have a limit, which might be 25 or 50. If you tell them you're a non-profit and ask for more, they might accommodate you, or they might refer you to their paid service, which is very reasonably priced and comes with additional functionality, guaranteed uptime and support.
As a platform, I love GMail. I think it's the best email client I've ever used, and I've used a lot of them extensively, including Outlook 1998-2007, Thunderbird, Groupwise, Notes, Yahoo and others. The threading and fast search are both killer features. The labeling, as opposed to folders, is a more flexible approach. While it lacks a lot of the bells and whistles in Outlook, I am hard-pressed to think of one I miss.
I'm less sold, at this point, on the additional Google applications. The calendar is very nice (and domains supports calendar sharing, groups and things that an organization would need), but synching to a palmpilot is an arcane art. Using iCal (Mac's calendar) and iCal (the calendar sharing standard), I'm able to do a one-way sync from Google to my Treo. But I can't sync appointments added to my Treo to Google. With 600 users, this will likely be a concern.
I'm also a fan of Google Docs, but I've been unsuccessful at standardizing on it because, first, there are too many times that I have to work offline, and, second, because it only supports storing certain document formats. I can't tell you how much more useful I would find it if I could store PDFs and JPEGs up there, even if editing them isn't an option.
Overall, the world of online apps is getting pretty sophisticated very fast, with Google decidedly at the forefront of feature set and innovative approach. Supplementing their apps with the excellent,Visio-like Gliffy and one of many graphic editing apps is growing into a viable alternative to MS if, and only if, you are at a desktop that's always connected. I'm a consultant, working often off-site on my laptop, and I can't have my work cut off if I don't have a wifi hotspot available.
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Peter Campbell
http://techcafeteria.com
-----original message-----
>>I administer an email system for about 600 users. We used to do everything inhouse but the worldwide increase in jpeg spam last year effectively shut us down and we decided to outsource our email for a year. So, currently we use to a small ISP and it costs us $200/month. I have been looking at moving to Google apps (since it's free) for email once our contract is up this summer. What are current thoughts on using it for email?>>
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