Gmail now has a business support tool with mgmt for free. I suppose if you use that you could lock out the user using the administrative accounts. Of course the damage could already be done if the freelancer wants a copy they could copy it in advance. But this isn't much different than sitting in an office and going to gmail or fwding all your mail before you leave. Unless someone is monitoring it somewhere does it really matter?
As a consultant myself I always like to point clients to the possibilities and let them determine the risk. Its my job as just about any IT person, to discuss the ramifications positive and negative and as long as you feel the client understands then your job is to follow the business decision (IMO). -----Original Message----- From: Oliver Marshall [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Thursday, January 24, 2008 3:03 PM To: NT System Admin Issues Subject: [OT] Gmail in the workplace Hi chaps, We are seeing a rise in the number of clients (current and/or possibles) that are looking at using gmail as their main busy email provision. Now, we mainly deal with web companies, and one thing we have noticed is that '2.0' companies just aren't swayed by the usual feature set of SBS 2003. Typically a lot of the sales parabola is met by a round of 'we don't really work that way' etc. For the most part, the only thing that really picks up ears is when we start discussing ownership of data, and being able to manage that data when faced with an increasing amount of freelancers. With the increase of the 'starbucks' approach to business, and an ever increasing number of freelancers, small non-traditional businesses seem to really struggle with the concept of non-web-centric information stores like and SBS 2003 server, linked to something affordable like an adsl line; take in to account the cost of CALs, support, maintenance etc they tend to stick with the free-web based services that they have 'grown' up with. Really, I thought I would ask people here, particularly those focusing on the Sme market (note the big S small ME), what you feel about this, how you counter peoples believe in gmail as a business tool, whether you even counter it at all...etc. Olly ~ Upgrade to Next Generation Antispam/Antivirus with Ninja! ~ ~ <http://www.sunbelt-software.com/SunbeltMessagingNinja.cfm> ~ ~ Upgrade to Next Generation Antispam/Antivirus with Ninja! ~ ~ <http://www.sunbelt-software.com/SunbeltMessagingNinja.cfm> ~
