[MCN-L] Google mail versus MS Exchange or others -- how aboutZimbra?
Ok, I'm chiming in with my two cents. I use Gmail and Google apps for my personal life and LOVE them. I find them to be more user friendly and more feature friendly than Outlook and MS Office apps. I have also used them to create web pages of the handouts that I give at museums conference etc. I decided to do this because we cannot have them up all the time on the museum's website and I wanted my handouts to constantly be available to people (everyone knows that you don't always get around to investigating something you learned at a conference right away). I also love Gmail and Google apps because I don't own the same software apps at home that the museum owns, so if I want to work on something at home I have to worry about will this software convert to that software. Using Google apps solves that problem for me and I have access to the work anywhere there is a computer and Internet. Sadly, our city IT department recently decided to block a lot of the Google apps. Now I'm back to square one with my software not being compatible with the museums and not having access everywhere I go. At the museum we are currently switching from Outlook to Zimbra and it's not going very well. Granted this could be due to our IT department. But at any rate, we are losing emails and getting folders that we don't need but can't delete. It's also a weird time for us because they've switched a few of us but not all of us, so we are in that stage where if someone has a probably is it the old system, is it the new system, or is it just them. Very frustrating. Heather Marie Wells Collections Assistant/Podcast Producer Shiloh Museum of Ozark History 118 W. Johnson Ave. Springdale, AR 72764 Phone: (479) 750-8165 Fax: (479) 750-8693 http://www.springdaleark.org/shiloh/ -Original Message- From: Christopher J. Mackie [mailto:c...@mellon.org] Sent: Wednesday, April 16, 2008 4:00 PM To: mcn-l at mcn.edu Subject: Re: [MCN-L] Google mail versus MS Exchange or others -- how aboutZimbra? You'll get me out of Outlook when you pry my cold, dead hands off the keyboard :-) I'm sure you've got a few users who actually know how to use the product who feel the same way. Why not keep them happy, too? If your users enjoy the scheduling and other functionality of Outlook/Exchange (which goes well beyond the functionality of Google Apps at present, and not just for meeting scheduling), then it might be worthwhile to take a look at one of the open-source Exchange alternatives like Zimbra: www.zimbra.com Zimbra was bought by Yahoo recently, so it's at least potentially a target if MS buys Yahoo--not the best news, though it's open source, so the worst that MS could do is to shut off the direct Exchange integration, which wouldn't matter if you're leaving Exchange entirely. But Zimbra's a terrific collaborative environment, it's fully web-based, and it solves the lack-of-equivalent-functionality problem much more fully than do Gmail/GCal. You can install it yourself, or buy mailboxes from them in a hosting model. Zimbra's not the only such product, either, so if you like the idea you can find a few other OSS competitors using similar models that would also like to help you leave Exchange. Hope this helps, --Chris ___ You are currently subscribed to mcn-l, the listserv of the Museum Computer Network (http://www.mcn.edu) To post to this list, send messages to: mcn-l at mcn.edu To unsubscribe or change mcn-l delivery options visit: http://toronto.mediatrope.com/mailman/listinfo/mcn-l
[MCN-L] Google mail versus MS Exchange or others
I'd be interested in learning what led you to consider this option. Chuck Patch On Tue, Apr 15, 2008 at 2:05 PM, Stan Orchard stanorchard at mac.com wrote: I'd love to see any comments here on the list. Thanks! On Apr 15, 2008, at 11:07 AM, Nancy Pinn wrote: We are taking a look at switching from Microsoft Exchange to Google mail for our email services. I am curious if any of you have made this switch or have given it any serious consideration. Any thoughts you would care to share will be appreciated. Please feel free to communicate with me directly at npinn at thewalters.org or calling me on 410-246-8339. Thanks, Nancy Nancy C. Pinn Director of Information Technology The Walters Art Museum 600 North Charles Street Baltimore MD 21201 410-547-9000 ext 339 410-246-8339 - direct dial 410-244-5870 - fax www.thewalters.org ___ You are currently subscribed to mcn-l, the listserv of the Museum Computer Network (http://www.mcn.edu) To post to this list, send messages to: mcn-l at mcn.edu To unsubscribe or change mcn-l delivery options visit: http://toronto.mediatrope.com/mailman/listinfo/mcn-l ___ You are currently subscribed to mcn-l, the listserv of the Museum Computer Network (http://www.mcn.edu) To post to this list, send messages to: mcn-l at mcn.edu To unsubscribe or change mcn-l delivery options visit: http://toronto.mediatrope.com/mailman/listinfo/mcn-l
[MCN-L] Google mail versus MS Exchange or others
I have been strongly urging cultural institutions, especially those with minimal or overworked, overstretched technology staffs to give serious consideration to moving to G-mail under their education/non-profit organization program. Many colleges/universities have been going, or are considering going, this route, with Arizona State University among the leaders in this. (they have been a bit radical in some other technology approaches as well). The academic sector may prove a good role model in this. I wont recapitulate the full apps programhttp://www.google.com/a/help/intl/en/org/index.htmlbut the increased storage capacity, sophisticated spam filtering, easy access to other google apps , migration assistance, retention of institutional email addressing, ease of remote access, become compelling cases for evaluation. Undoubtedly one factor would be the extent to which specialized features of Exchange used by staff can not be easily replaced. I have long posited that, generally speaking, the core competency of museums is not the management of complex systems, but the creative use of them and that museums should be vigilant in periodically reevaluating where there time and costs are dedicated. For some museums, internal email management may be appropriate, but for many it probably no longer is. In an era of increasing emergence of webware as an effective application strategy, legacy, in-house systems will come under increasing scrutiny. I think Email is a start. http://www.google.com/a/help/intl/en/edu/index.html On Wed, Apr 16, 2008 at 9:32 AM, Chuck Patch chuck.patch at gmail.com wrote: I'd be interested in learning what led you to consider this option. Chuck Patch On Tue, Apr 15, 2008 at 2:05 PM, Stan Orchard stanorchard at mac.com wrote: I'd love to see any comments here on the list. Thanks! On Apr 15, 2008, at 11:07 AM, Nancy Pinn wrote: We are taking a look at switching from Microsoft Exchange to Google mail for our email services. I am curious if any of you have made this switch or have given it any serious consideration. Any thoughts you would care to share will be appreciated. Please feel free to communicate with me directly at npinn at thewalters.org or calling me on 410-246-8339. Thanks, Nancy Nancy C. Pinn Director of Information Technology The Walters Art Museum 600 North Charles Street Baltimore MD 21201 410-547-9000 ext 339 410-246-8339 - direct dial 410-244-5870 - fax www.thewalters.org ___ You are currently subscribed to mcn-l, the listserv of the Museum Computer Network (http://www.mcn.edu) To post to this list, send messages to: mcn-l at mcn.edu To unsubscribe or change mcn-l delivery options visit: http://toronto.mediatrope.com/mailman/listinfo/mcn-l ___ You are currently subscribed to mcn-l, the listserv of the Museum Computer Network (http://www.mcn.edu) To post to this list, send messages to: mcn-l at mcn.edu To unsubscribe or change mcn-l delivery options visit: http://toronto.mediatrope.com/mailman/listinfo/mcn-l ___ You are currently subscribed to mcn-l, the listserv of the Museum Computer Network (http://www.mcn.edu) To post to this list, send messages to: mcn-l at mcn.edu To unsubscribe or change mcn-l delivery options visit: http://toronto.mediatrope.com/mailman/listinfo/mcn-l
[MCN-L] Google mail versus MS Exchange or others
If you are not using any other features of Outlook (and I am thinking mostly about the ability to schedule meetings which is a major sanity check in our small organization--how much more so in larger ones?) than gmail has a lot of advantages over Outlook. But we have found that our staff hate using google apps--they simply won't use it as a replacement to office, and that they reject the overall set of applications (google calendar, gmail, google apps). At the same time, I fully agree with the proposition that museums should not be worrying about maintaining an Exchange server and the like. We outsource those services (indeed, all IT server, backup, helpdesk stuff) to a local company. If that is an option, it may fit staff preferences and needs, at this time, better than using the Google tools (or, to consider a somewhat more advanced, but still uncompelling free alternative, Zoho). A year from now, I am hoping to answer this question differently. ari On Wed, Apr 16, 2008 at 10:43 AM, Leonard Steinbach lensteinbach at gmail.com wrote: I have been strongly urging cultural institutions, especially those with minimal or overworked, overstretched technology staffs to give serious consideration to moving to G-mail under their education/non-profit organization program. Many colleges/universities have been going, or are considering going, this route, with Arizona State University among the leaders in this. (they have been a bit radical in some other technology approaches as well). The academic sector may prove a good role model in this. I wont recapitulate the full apps programhttp://www.google.com/a/help/intl/en/org/index.htmlbut the increased storage capacity, sophisticated spam filtering, easy access to other google apps , migration assistance, retention of institutional email addressing, ease of remote access, become compelling cases for evaluation. Undoubtedly one factor would be the extent to which specialized features of Exchange used by staff can not be easily replaced. I have long posited that, generally speaking, the core competency of museums is not the management of complex systems, but the creative use of them and that museums should be vigilant in periodically reevaluating where there time and costs are dedicated. For some museums, internal email management may be appropriate, but for many it probably no longer is. In an era of increasing emergence of webware as an effective application strategy, legacy, in-house systems will come under increasing scrutiny. I think Email is a start. http://www.google.com/a/help/intl/en/edu/index.html On Wed, Apr 16, 2008 at 9:32 AM, Chuck Patch chuck.patch at gmail.com wrote: I'd be interested in learning what led you to consider this option. Chuck Patch On Tue, Apr 15, 2008 at 2:05 PM, Stan Orchard stanorchard at mac.com wrote: I'd love to see any comments here on the list. Thanks! On Apr 15, 2008, at 11:07 AM, Nancy Pinn wrote: We are taking a look at switching from Microsoft Exchange to Google mail for our email services. I am curious if any of you have made this switch or have given it any serious consideration. Any thoughts you would care to share will be appreciated. Please feel free to communicate with me directly at npinn at thewalters.org or calling me on 410-246-8339. Thanks, Nancy Nancy C. Pinn Director of Information Technology The Walters Art Museum 600 North Charles Street Baltimore MD 21201 410-547-9000 ext 339 410-246-8339 - direct dial 410-244-5870 - fax www.thewalters.org
[MCN-L] Google mail versus MS Exchange or others
OK. I held off hijacking the thread until someone else did it for me.. Interesting. During the month(s) our internal systems were down following Katrina, I set up initial communications among the staff using Google groups and set up people without personal email accounts on Google mail. While we later developed an online staff directory that people could personally update while on the road, it was the initial use of the Google group that allowed us to get in contact. Although I suspect that there would still be significant resistance among our tech folk, the truth is that there is nothing that our institution does with Exchange that couldn't be done in Google mail, which is another way of saying that no one uses any of the useful features in Exchange, such as meeting scheduling etc. Or rather, a handful will and the rest never pay attention to those features which makes them useless. I also agree with Ari that staff will probably hate the Google apps and prefer Office, but then when has anyone's staff not hated anything other than what they've been using? Switch them to Office 2007 and I promise Google Apps will look fabulous. I think the real hump for most institutions to surmount is the sense that you're much more reliant on your ISP with this system. In fact, it's not email where web services are making inroads, it's in more peripheral stuff like event registration, online calendaring, shop stores, etc that are raising the comfort level for things closer to the mission. Chuck Patch On Wed, Apr 16, 2008 at 10:43 AM, Leonard Steinbach lensteinbach at gmail.com wrote: I have been strongly urging cultural institutions, especially those with minimal or overworked, overstretched technology staffs to give serious consideration to moving to G-mail under their education/non-profit organization program. Many colleges/universities have been going, or are considering going, this route, with Arizona State University among the leaders in this. (they have been a bit radical in some other technology approaches as well). The academic sector may prove a good role model in this. I wont recapitulate the full apps programhttp://www.google.com/a/help/intl/en/org/index.htmlbut the increased storage capacity, sophisticated spam filtering, easy access to other google apps , migration assistance, retention of institutional email addressing, ease of remote access, become compelling cases for evaluation. Undoubtedly one factor would be the extent to which specialized features of Exchange used by staff can not be easily replaced. I have long posited that, generally speaking, the core competency of museums is not the management of complex systems, but the creative use of them and that museums should be vigilant in periodically reevaluating where there time and costs are dedicated. For some museums, internal email management may be appropriate, but for many it probably no longer is. In an era of increasing emergence of webware as an effective application strategy, legacy, in-house systems will come under increasing scrutiny. I think Email is a start. http://www.google.com/a/help/intl/en/edu/index.html On Wed, Apr 16, 2008 at 9:32 AM, Chuck Patch chuck.patch at gmail.com wrote: I'd be interested in learning what led you to consider this option. Chuck Patch On Tue, Apr 15, 2008 at 2:05 PM, Stan Orchard stanorchard at mac.com wrote: I'd love to see any comments here on the list. Thanks! On Apr 15, 2008, at 11:07 AM, Nancy Pinn wrote: We are taking a look at switching from Microsoft Exchange to Google mail for our email services. I am curious if any of you have made this switch or have given it any serious consideration. Any thoughts you would care to share will be appreciated. Please feel free to communicate with me directly at npinn at thewalters.org or calling me on 410-246-8339. Thanks, Nancy Nancy C. Pinn Director of Information Technology The Walters Art Museum 600 North Charles Street Baltimore MD 21201 410-547-9000 ext 339 410-246-8339 - direct dial 410-244-5870 - fax www.thewalters.org ___ You are currently subscribed to mcn-l, the listserv of the Museum Computer Network (http://www.mcn.edu) To post to this list, send messages to: mcn-l at mcn.edu To unsubscribe or change mcn-l delivery options visit: http://toronto.mediatrope.com/mailman/listinfo/mcn-l ___ You are currently subscribed to mcn-l, the listserv of the Museum Computer Network (http://www.mcn.edu) To post to this list, send messages to: mcn-l at mcn.edu To unsubscribe or change mcn-l delivery options visit:
[MCN-L] Google mail versus MS Exchange or others
Chuck raises one issue that I'd LOVE to learn more about: keeping staff directory updated. I am a Mac guy and never liked Entourage and absolutely detest the Outlook Web interface. So, for many months now I have been using Gmail for all my work mail. While ANY Web interface, IMO pales compared to a standalone mail client, I find myself loving this. Gone are the constant nags from our in-house system telling me I'm over my storage limit, I can use the far superior filtering, it even takes meeting requests from colleagues using Outlook and places them on my google calendar. When I first switched it was trivial to dump the GAL to a text file and import to gmail. But as staff members come and go (or marry and change user names), it sometimes becomes troublesome to keep my contacts straight. Does anyone have suggestions on that issue? I'm REALLY enjoying this thread. I agree with just about everything said so far. Putting your critical business apps online is something we all should be looking at one way or another. It makes sense on many levels. Thanks VERY much! Stan Orchard Web Publisher Pacific Science Center On Apr 16, 2008, at 4/16/089:20 AM, Chuck Patch wrote: OK. I held off hijacking the thread until someone else did it for me.. Interesting. During the month(s) our internal systems were down following Katrina, I set up initial communications among the staff using Google groups and set up people without personal email accounts on Google mail. While we later developed an online staff directory that people could personally update while on the road, it was the initial use of the Google group that allowed us to get in contact. Although I suspect that there would still be significant resistance among our tech folk, the truth is that there is nothing that our institution does with Exchange that couldn't be done in Google mail, which is another way of saying that no one uses any of the useful features in Exchange, such as meeting scheduling etc. Or rather, a handful will and the rest never pay attention to those features which makes them useless. I also agree with Ari that staff will probably hate the Google apps and prefer Office, but then when has anyone's staff not hated anything other than what they've been using? Switch them to Office 2007 and I promise Google Apps will look fabulous. I think the real hump for most institutions to surmount is the sense that you're much more reliant on your ISP with this system. In fact, it's not email where web services are making inroads, it's in more peripheral stuff like event registration, online calendaring, shop stores, etc that are raising the comfort level for things closer to the mission. Chuck Patch On Wed, Apr 16, 2008 at 10:43 AM, Leonard Steinbach lensteinbach at gmail.com wrote: I have been strongly urging cultural institutions, especially those with minimal or overworked, overstretched technology staffs to give serious consideration to moving to G-mail under their education/non-profit organization program. Many colleges/universities have been going, or are considering going, this route, with Arizona State University among the leaders in this. (they have been a bit radical in some other technology approaches as well). The academic sector may prove a good role model in this. I wont recapitulate the full apps programhttp://www.google.com/a/help/intl/en/org/index.htmlbut the increased storage capacity, sophisticated spam filtering, easy access to other google apps , migration assistance, retention of institutional email addressing, ease of remote access, become compelling cases for evaluation. Undoubtedly one factor would be the extent to which specialized features of Exchange used by staff can not be easily replaced. I have long posited that, generally speaking, the core competency of museums is not the management of complex systems, but the creative use of them and that museums should be vigilant in periodically reevaluating where there time and costs are dedicated. For some museums, internal email management may be appropriate, but for many it probably no longer is. In an era of increasing emergence of webware as an effective application strategy, legacy, in-house systems will come under increasing scrutiny. I think Email is a start. http://www.google.com/a/help/intl/en/edu/index.html On Wed, Apr 16, 2008 at 9:32 AM, Chuck Patch chuck.patch at gmail.com wrote: I'd be interested in learning what led you to consider this option. Chuck Patch On Tue, Apr 15, 2008 at 2:05 PM, Stan Orchard stanorchard at mac.com wrote: I'd love to see any comments here on the list. Thanks! On Apr 15, 2008, at 11:07 AM, Nancy Pinn wrote: We are taking a look at switching from Microsoft Exchange to Google mail for our email services. I am curious if any of you have
[MCN-L] Google mail versus MS Exchange or others
Thanks, Chuck and Ari, and I shall sit back a bit after this one... I appreciate Chuck's reference to reliance on the ISP, but wonder how really increased this would be? We still rely on ISPs for external email, web access, ticketing and others for pretty critical usefulness. Also (maybe this is one of those for better or worse things) google mail becomes more independent of an ISP than if email is simply outsourced to the ISP. I take the point about other applications creating a comfort level for remote applications, but email could also be a start. But I dont want to neglect the whole issue of Return on Investment. To what extent does moving email (etal) out free up financial and human resources to focus on that which must be done internally, and, more importantly, improve service and resources so that it results in a net gain to the organization as a whole. And if this is ACT ONE, ACT TWO is outsourcing phone systems through remote VOIP hosting, an area which is not quite a mature and cost-effective in all situations as might be hoped...but rapidly getting there. On Wed, Apr 16, 2008 at 12:20 PM, Chuck Patch chuck.patch at gmail.com wrote: OK. I held off hijacking the thread until someone else did it for me.. Interesting. During the month(s) our internal systems were down following Katrina, I set up initial communications among the staff using Google groups and set up people without personal email accounts on Google mail. While we later developed an online staff directory that people could personally update while on the road, it was the initial use of the Google group that allowed us to get in contact. Although I suspect that there would still be significant resistance among our tech folk, the truth is that there is nothing that our institution does with Exchange that couldn't be done in Google mail, which is another way of saying that no one uses any of the useful features in Exchange, such as meeting scheduling etc. Or rather, a handful will and the rest never pay attention to those features which makes them useless. I also agree with Ari that staff will probably hate the Google apps and prefer Office, but then when has anyone's staff not hated anything other than what they've been using? Switch them to Office 2007 and I promise Google Apps will look fabulous. I think the real hump for most institutions to surmount is the sense that you're much more reliant on your ISP with this system. In fact, it's not email where web services are making inroads, it's in more peripheral stuff like event registration, online calendaring, shop stores, etc that are raising the comfort level for things closer to the mission. Chuck Patch On Wed, Apr 16, 2008 at 10:43 AM, Leonard Steinbach lensteinbach at gmail.com wrote: I have been strongly urging cultural institutions, especially those with minimal or overworked, overstretched technology staffs to give serious consideration to moving to G-mail under their education/non-profit organization program. Many colleges/universities have been going, or are considering going, this route, with Arizona State University among the leaders in this. (they have been a bit radical in some other technology approaches as well). The academic sector may prove a good role model in this. I wont recapitulate the full apps programhttp://www.google.com/a/help/intl/en/org/index.htmlbut the increased storage capacity, sophisticated spam filtering, easy access to other google apps , migration assistance, retention of institutional email addressing, ease of remote access, become compelling cases for evaluation. Undoubtedly one factor would be the extent to which specialized features of Exchange used by staff can not be easily replaced. I have long posited that, generally speaking, the core competency of museums is not the management of complex systems, but the creative use of them and that museums should be vigilant in periodically reevaluating where there time and costs are dedicated. For some museums, internal email management may be appropriate, but for many it probably no longer is. In an era of increasing emergence of webware as an effective application strategy, legacy, in-house systems will come under increasing scrutiny. I think Email is a start. http://www.google.com/a/help/intl/en/edu/index.html On Wed, Apr 16, 2008 at 9:32 AM, Chuck Patch chuck.patch at gmail.com wrote: I'd be interested in learning what led you to consider this option. Chuck Patch On Tue, Apr 15, 2008 at 2:05 PM, Stan Orchard stanorchard at mac.com wrote: I'd love to see any comments here on the list. Thanks! On Apr 15, 2008, at 11:07 AM, Nancy Pinn wrote: We are taking a look at switching from Microsoft Exchange to Google mail for our email services. I am curious if any of you have made this switch or have given it any
[MCN-L] Google mail versus MS Exchange or others
I am perhaps old fashioned in this regard but I am wary of Google's dependence on advertising revenue, and a potential creep of the ad world into enterprise applications and services. (sidebar ads are optional but for how long?) Google is a darling now - but the belle of the ball is rarely a permanent position. There is always the risk that Google will tighten the corporate screws, no guarantee that gmail will always be harmless or even inexpensive ... A backlash against Google at some point is probably inevitable - this could impact cultural heritage institutions sensitive about such associations (no different than say, considering corporate sponsors for an exhibition). I recently used a museum's collection search powered by Windows Live. I didn't find what I was looking for and as a bonus got a whole bunch of ads on the side. I found this distressing. Peter Dueker On 4/16/08 12:20 PM, Chuck Patch chuck.patch at gmail.com wrote: OK. I held off hijacking the thread until someone else did it for me.. Interesting. During the month(s) our internal systems were down following Katrina, I set up initial communications among the staff using Google groups and set up people without personal email accounts on Google mail. While we later developed an online staff directory that people could personally update while on the road, it was the initial use of the Google group that allowed us to get in contact. Although I suspect that there would still be significant resistance among our tech folk, the truth is that there is nothing that our institution does with Exchange that couldn't be done in Google mail, which is another way of saying that no one uses any of the useful features in Exchange, such as meeting scheduling etc. Or rather, a handful will and the rest never pay attention to those features which makes them useless. I also agree with Ari that staff will probably hate the Google apps and prefer Office, but then when has anyone's staff not hated anything other than what they've been using? Switch them to Office 2007 and I promise Google Apps will look fabulous. I think the real hump for most institutions to surmount is the sense that you're much more reliant on your ISP with this system. In fact, it's not email where web services are making inroads, it's in more peripheral stuff like event registration, online calendaring, shop stores, etc that are raising the comfort level for things closer to the mission. Chuck Patch On Wed, Apr 16, 2008 at 10:43 AM, Leonard Steinbach lensteinbach at gmail.com wrote: I have been strongly urging cultural institutions, especially those with minimal or overworked, overstretched technology staffs to give serious consideration to moving to G-mail under their education/non-profit organization program. Many colleges/universities have been going, or are considering going, this route, with Arizona State University among the leaders in this. (they have been a bit radical in some other technology approaches as well). The academic sector may prove a good role model in this. I wont recapitulate the full apps programhttp://www.google.com/a/help/intl/en/org/index.htmlbut the increased storage capacity, sophisticated spam filtering, easy access to other google apps , migration assistance, retention of institutional email addressing, ease of remote access, become compelling cases for evaluation. Undoubtedly one factor would be the extent to which specialized features of Exchange used by staff can not be easily replaced. I have long posited that, generally speaking, the core competency of museums is not the management of complex systems, but the creative use of them and that museums should be vigilant in periodically reevaluating where there time and costs are dedicated. For some museums, internal email management may be appropriate, but for many it probably no longer is. In an era of increasing emergence of webware as an effective application strategy, legacy, in-house systems will come under increasing scrutiny. I think Email is a start. http://www.google.com/a/help/intl/en/edu/index.html On Wed, Apr 16, 2008 at 9:32 AM, Chuck Patch chuck.patch at gmail.com wrote: I'd be interested in learning what led you to consider this option. Chuck Patch On Tue, Apr 15, 2008 at 2:05 PM, Stan Orchard stanorchard at mac.com wrote: I'd love to see any comments here on the list. Thanks! On Apr 15, 2008, at 11:07 AM, Nancy Pinn wrote: We are taking a look at switching from Microsoft Exchange to Google mail for our email services. I am curious if any of you have made this switch or have given it any serious consideration. Any thoughts you would care to share will be appreciated. Please feel free to communicate with me directly at npinn at thewalters.org or calling me on 410-246-8339. Thanks, Nancy Nancy C. Pinn Director of Information Technology
[MCN-L] Google mail versus MS Exchange or others
This is a really fascinating discussion! There've been some sessions at various conferences about how small museums, in particular, can utilize the plethora of free and open source applications now available. But even our own midsized museum is starting to struggle with this. Case in point: this morning, I answered an email from another staff member about Microsoft Project. Since we've already used up our allotted Microsoft Products through TechSoup, this particular staff member is kinda SOL through the end of the year when it comes to ordering another license for MS Project. So we've directed her to OpenProj instead. Unfortunately, she wants it to integrate with our Exchange server and is uncomfortable with looking online for answers to questions (we only have 3 hours a week for tech support onsite). Regardless, we've started directing people to use open source products when we can't order new software through TechSoup, or if they want software to use at home. As an aside, because we don't have much in the way of tech support, sometimes the ISP (and our scary-slow DSL connection) is much more reliable than our servers! Perian Sully Collection Information and New Media Coordinator Judah L. Magnes Museum -Original Message- From: mcn-l-bounces at mcn.edu [mailto:mcn-l-boun...@mcn.edu] On Behalf Of Leonard Steinbach Sent: Wednesday, April 16, 2008 9:42 AM To: Museum Computer Network Listserv Subject: Re: [MCN-L] Google mail versus MS Exchange or others Thanks, Chuck and Ari, and I shall sit back a bit after this one... I appreciate Chuck's reference to reliance on the ISP, but wonder how really increased this would be? We still rely on ISPs for external email, web access, ticketing and others for pretty critical usefulness. Also (maybe this is one of those for better or worse things) google mail becomes more independent of an ISP than if email is simply outsourced to the ISP. I take the point about other applications creating a comfort level for remote applications, but email could also be a start.
[MCN-L] Google mail versus MS Exchange or others
Interesting. I know there has been discussion about how easy it is to migrate emails over to Google, has anyone posed the question about the ease of migrating them back, once Google is no longer the belle of the ball? What benefits exist with Google, instead of another email vendor like mail.com, which does offer business email hosting? Or, as an institution with a hosted webserver, would it be more beneficial to take advantage of a webmail application like Horde, since benefits like back-ups would be managed by the hosting company, but we would still maintain control over the system config (etc)? Chad M Petrovay Collections Database Administrator The Walters Art Museum 600 North Charles Street Baltimore, MD 21210 P: 410.547.9000 x266 F: 410.837.4846 cpetrovay at thewalters.org www.thewalters.org -Original Message- From: mcn-l-bounces at mcn.edu [mailto:mcn-l-boun...@mcn.edu] On Behalf Of Dueker, Peter Sent: Wednesday, April 16, 2008 12:50 PM To: Museum Computer Network Listserv Subject: Re: [MCN-L] Google mail versus MS Exchange or others I am perhaps old fashioned in this regard but I am wary of Google's dependence on advertising revenue, and a potential creep of the ad world into enterprise applications and services. (sidebar ads are optional but for how long?) Google is a darling now - but the belle of the ball is rarely a permanent position. There is always the risk that Google will tighten the corporate screws, no guarantee that gmail will always be harmless or even inexpensive ... A backlash against Google at some point is probably inevitable - this could impact cultural heritage institutions sensitive about such associations (no different than say, considering corporate sponsors for an exhibition). I recently used a museum's collection search powered by Windows Live. I didn't find what I was looking for and as a bonus got a whole bunch of ads on the side. I found this distressing. Peter Dueker On 4/16/08 12:20 PM, Chuck Patch chuck.patch at gmail.com wrote: OK. I held off hijacking the thread until someone else did it for me.. Interesting. During the month(s) our internal systems were down following Katrina, I set up initial communications among the staff using Google groups and set up people without personal email accounts on Google mail. While we later developed an online staff directory that people could personally update while on the road, it was the initial use of the Google group that allowed us to get in contact. Although I suspect that there would still be significant resistance among our tech folk, the truth is that there is nothing that our institution does with Exchange that couldn't be done in Google mail, which is another way of saying that no one uses any of the useful features in Exchange, such as meeting scheduling etc. Or rather, a handful will and the rest never pay attention to those features which makes them useless. I also agree with Ari that staff will probably hate the Google apps and prefer Office, but then when has anyone's staff not hated anything other than what they've been using? Switch them to Office 2007 and I promise Google Apps will look fabulous. I think the real hump for most institutions to surmount is the sense that you're much more reliant on your ISP with this system. In fact, it's not email where web services are making inroads, it's in more peripheral stuff like event registration, online calendaring, shop stores, etc that are raising the comfort level for things closer to the mission. Chuck Patch On Wed, Apr 16, 2008 at 10:43 AM, Leonard Steinbach lensteinbach at gmail.com wrote: I have been strongly urging cultural institutions, especially those with minimal or overworked, overstretched technology staffs to give serious consideration to moving to G-mail under their education/non-profit organization program. Many colleges/universities have been going, or are considering going, this route, with Arizona State University among the leaders in this. (they have been a bit radical in some other technology approaches as well). The academic sector may prove a good role model in this. I wont recapitulate the full apps programhttp://www.google.com/a/help/intl/en/org/index.htmlbut the increased storage capacity, sophisticated spam filtering, easy access to other google apps , migration assistance, retention of institutional email addressing, ease of remote access, become compelling cases for evaluation. Undoubtedly one factor would be the extent to which specialized features of Exchange used by staff can not be easily replaced. I have long posited that, generally speaking, the core competency of museums is not the management of complex systems, but the creative use of them and that museums should be vigilant in periodically reevaluating where there time and costs are dedicated. For some museums, internal email management may be appropriate, but for many it probably no longer
[MCN-L] Google mail versus MS Exchange or others -- how about Zimbra?
You'll get me out of Outlook when you pry my cold, dead hands off the keyboard :-) I'm sure you've got a few users who actually know how to use the product who feel the same way. Why not keep them happy, too? If your users enjoy the scheduling and other functionality of Outlook/Exchange (which goes well beyond the functionality of Google Apps at present, and not just for meeting scheduling), then it might be worthwhile to take a look at one of the open-source Exchange alternatives like Zimbra: www.zimbra.com Zimbra was bought by Yahoo recently, so it's at least potentially a target if MS buys Yahoo--not the best news, though it's open source, so the worst that MS could do is to shut off the direct Exchange integration, which wouldn't matter if you're leaving Exchange entirely. But Zimbra's a terrific collaborative environment, it's fully web-based, and it solves the lack-of-equivalent-functionality problem much more fully than do Gmail/GCal. You can install it yourself, or buy mailboxes from them in a hosting model. Zimbra's not the only such product, either, so if you like the idea you can find a few other OSS competitors using similar models that would also like to help you leave Exchange. Hope this helps, --Chris
