Many have fallen in love with Google Apps including Gmail and Google Calendar, but there are those that still have gotten used to the Outlook interface and folder work flow. Good news for Outlook lovers. A start up called Cemaphore is developing an plug in for Outlook that will interface with Google Apps in much the same way that Outlook interfaces with Microsoft Exchange server.
Robert Scoble has a demonstration video. The execution is still a bit shaky in this video, and they have user preference issues to work out. Overall, the product looks very promising.
This will place Google into a position to be a killer-application for business users. One instance where I can see this to be useful is where Outlook is the bridge between a business application and email. Much software today relies on Outlook to manage email such in sending quotations or communications directly from the software. This will free companies up to use centralized, always-available email with their business applications.
This tool will also eliminate the need for expensive and IT-task-intensive Microsoft Exchange. This will satisfy the same 24/7 email access without the need for a server in the office running day and night. The main advantage of Exchange has been the always backed up central repository of email and scheduling. Google will be able to satisfy this need even more readily with their massive data infrastructure.
Some will argue that this is already available with hosted Exchange. That is true, but the pricing cannot even compare. I have reviewed hosted Exchange plans that cost from $10 to $12 per month compared to Google’s $50 per year. The other problem is that a hosted Exchange provider does not exist that can offer the data integrity and availability that is available from Google.
All right. Enough Google-loving for one day.