I've recently been privileged to take part in "Gmail for your domain", the ability to give your own domain name Gmail facilities. But it's much more than that. It also gives you Google Calendar which, combined with Gmail, is a seriously good Exchange replacement.

Those of us that have used Exchange on anything other than a Windows box with Outlook or Internet Explorer and OWA know that when trying to use OWA *without* Internet Explorer, you are seriously restricted as to what you can do with it. No rules, no right-click menus, just a very basic webmail system.

Sure, there are third party email clients that can talk to an Exchange server - but these are still limited in what they can do, and sometimes are pretty buggy. I can't stand using Entourage on the Mac, and Apple Mail doesn't do very much more and consequently I find talking to an Exchange server via IMAP much better instead.

Gmail works with just about anything you throw at it, all facilities are available to you. Calendaring just works. You can share calendars with other Gmail users (or other users on your Gmail for domain account) and along with POP3 and authenticated SMTP access, you've got one great service.

I won't go into too much depth about what facilities are provided with Gmail for domain, but needless to say there's plenty to be getting on with in order to manage your users. In normal day-to-day operation it works exactly like a normal Gmail account.

I'm very excited about Gmail for your domain, and with a few more improvements (mainly cosmetic - I would much prefer to see a fixed-width for composing and reading messages rather than the proportional font they're currently using - it completely screws up decent formatting) it could be an Exchange beater.

M.

I should just follow-up to say that one disadvantage Gmail has is the lack of IMAP support - BUT when I've been using POP3 it's been quick and reliable. Gmail DOES have another added advantage of Gmail Mobile in which you can access your mail through any mobile phone web browser.

I've no idea whether Google intend to charge for "Gmail for your domain" but regardless it's got to be cheaper than a fully configured Exchange set-up and much, much, much more portable and accessible.

M.

Another major disadvantage of Gmail is security.
Do you, as a company (or a private person), really want a third party to have unrestricted access to all your communications and a policy that states clearly they'll use that access for what amounts to corporate espionage and reserve the right to sell your corporate secrets to the highest bidder?

One thought might be for Google to release the product as a server appliance for Enterprise companies. However, the terms and conditions and policies are clearly on display and nobody is forcing anybody to use Google's services.

It's all early days..

M.