Having your own Microsoft Exchange server is like a Good Housekeeping Seal of Approval. It certifies that your company has arrived as a serious, going concern. Exchange is by far the most popular e-mail server out there, and IT departments like the fact that they can always find plenty of people who know how to work with it. And everyone likes that fact that e-mail stays under their control, rather than being loose in the cloud. Used by organizations large and small, Exchange has proven itself in a wide variety of applications. Users, meanwhile, like Exchange's tight integration with Microsoft Outlook, and all the associated calendaring and address book functionality. You can even use it for voice mail.
But not everyone loves Exchange's costs. Pricing for the current version of Exchange is kinda complicated, but typical SMBs should expect to pay hundreds, if not thousands, for the software alone, not to mention the hardware to run it and the time and hassle to keep it running.
If you don't want to spend that kind of money, Gmail makes an admirable Plan B. If the free consumer version isn't robust enough for your company, there's also a business version of Gmail included in Google Apps. Google Apps for messaging (which includes the calendaring function) is priced at $50 per user per year, and the company thoughtfully provides an online calculator to help you estimate the cost savings.
Bottom Line: While living without Microsoft Exchange may cost you some functionality and IT street cred, Gmail has advantages that go beyond price. Aren't we all tired of those annoying messages telling us that we're nearly out of storage space on the Exchange server? I've never heard of that kind of thing happening with Gmail.
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