Email is a headache.

You've got your server, spam filtration, content control. You've backups, security. You've got a full time staff trying to keep everything working together. And then you've got upgrades... upgrades which can mean new servers, and installations across the board.

In fact, Forrester research cites the overall cost of email at between $200 and $400 per person per year. Just to send and receive email.

With Google Apps you get email, calendars and more, available securely from anywhere. You get Postini spam filtration and content control. And you never have to deal with expensive servers nor complex software.

So this month we're going to look at how integrating your business with Google Apps can not just save you money, but save you from the headaches of email infrastructure.

And if you're ready to take a leap into the cloud, let us know.

10 more or less unknown features of Google Apps

Google Apps provide a lot of functionality, so much that often a lot of features get forgotten about. In this post we cover 10 (plus 1) advanced features that will allow you to get the most out of Google Apps.

In order to ease migration to Google Apps, Google has provided migration and compatibility tools for Exchange users. This post looks at these tools and how they can help your company migrate with ease.

Working Offline with Google Docs

One of our 10 more or less unknown features of Google Apps was that you can take Google Docs, as well as Gmail, offline in order to work outside of an internet connection. In this post we explain how to do this, and how it can enhance your work flow.

Google Apps Deployment Configuration Checklist

Ready to dive into the cloud? Provided by Google themselves, this spreadsheet will help you:

• "Take an inventory of your current IT environment"
• "Track configuration changes to your IT environment"
• "Track configurations for Google Apps features"
• "Track account provisioning and data migration activities"
• "Determine your basic training and documentation needs"
• "Ensure you're ready for each phase of deployment"

Just make sure to hit "file > make a copy" to save it to your own Google docs account first.

What kind of security do you have?

One of the major issues people have with Google Apps is the fear of allowing their data to be spread over servers that they have no control of. If some one else is in control of your content, you can't have the same level of assurance as if it's in your own hands, right? Not necessarily.

 With the security used in their multi-billion dollar adwords system, Google's cloud based server architecture that obfuscates data by splitting it across multiple servers, and custom built servers with their own OS (leaving them nigh impossible to analyze for weaknesses), you would be challenged to come close, even with an unlimited security budget.

Further, because employees can access information securely from anywhere, they're less likely to save sensitive data to local drives, and thus less likely to accidentally allow information to fall into the wrong hands.

In short, your information is safer in the cloud.