Regarding Outlook with Google Apps, what I was able to gather about it at the time was that the experience was not equal to the Exchange-based experience, notably in the way all the various Calendaring tasks (multi-colleague free/busy lookup, invitations automatically pencilling in the time in recipients’s Calendars until accepted/decline, etc.) are supported, which in an Exchange environment is really fantastic and something we as a company have come to rely on for managing ourselves. Entirely possible (indeed probable) that Google either has improved or is improving this — but we needed it all at decision time, and for other reasons couldn’t put our move into the cloud on hold.

While you make an excellent point, you are looking at it from somewhat narrow perspective. My point of view may be subjective, but so is yours. Prior to developing a posting the comparative analysis, we have put in a lot of work comparing both solutions while striving to stay unbiased. After all, our study was not sponsored by either company.

Don’t get me wrong, I don’t dislike Microsoft BPOS and truly like the interface, and I agree and it is sleeker than that offered by Google Apps, but at the end of the day, the interface is secondary to such criteria as functionality, features, and ease of use. As outlined in the original post, overall Google has done a much better job with Google Apps.

As fas as customer service and support are concerned, don’t even get me started. By the by, Google does provide excellent support when you need it, while Microsoft, at times is unable to simply deliver and activate licenses for its own products for days bouncing SMB and IT executives from person to person, and I am not talking about Windows or Office.

Thanks again for the feedback!

But there are a couple of considerations this post doesn’t cover. These may be important for some people and not for others, depending on how their companies work and what their personal and business priorities are. Some considerations that were important to me, and that led me to choose BPOS over Google Apps Premier, are:
1. Customer Service. BPOS has 24/7 customer service. I have never failed to immediately reach a friendly and knowledgeable human being, and every issue or question that I have had was addressed competently and quickly. This, for me at least, is worth the extra money.
2. User Interface. I find Google’s jumble of a UI almost impossible to work with. BPOS has a gorgeous, clean, orderly, logical UI that is totally pleasant to work with. It makes a big difference.
3. Mobile Device functionality: there is just nothing like Exchange for mobile devices, unless your company is on Blackberry, which mine is not (way too expensive). Google’s imap-based mail offering is pretty okay (although still not like Exchange), but on the whole (counting Calendar and Contacts) Google still does not support a proper mobile PIM the way Exchange does on a variety of devices including notably the iPhone.

I still sometimes wonder whether I made the right decision in going with BPOS instead of Google Apps Premier. But when I remember how important good customer support is to me, and how important a good mobile PIM is to me and the others in my company, I conclude anew that it was the only choice at the time.

Rob