The free version of Google Apps is on trial over here and now it’s up and running we can take it for a spin to see what it offers our ever increasing roaming user base. The other systems we are looking at are Microsoft Office Sharepoint Server and Office Live Workspace.

Google Apps offers online access to Mail, Calendar, Talk, Docs, Sites, Webs as well as a Start page based on iGoogle which has the advantage of being a familiar environment to many users. One of the biggest problems with rolling out systems is user adoption so offering a familiar interface (and a useful one with the combined search function) is always a boon. Google have also included a handy little user FAQ that can be included on your site to answer those oft asked questions by new users.

Google Apps can utilise domain level redirection so these applications can appear, to the user base, as part of your own domain (you need access to update your public DNS records). This was relatively straightforward to configure but wasn’t without a few hiccups (remember to check the box that says allow users to make sites public under Google Sites).

Following some configuration and viewing of the tutorials and overviews we now have a custom start/search page with our own domain logo. Google Docs is setup for online document storage and for collaborating on documents, spreadsheets and presentations. Sites is configured for creating team workspaces and calendar to obtain offline synchronised calendar items with Outlook. To gain a level of integration we have to rely on the gadgets/widgets on the start page and, whilst usable, this is where this sort of technology shows its infancy as some widgets are better integrated than others and business widgets are mixed in and available together with the leisure and social widgets. I haven’t found a way yet of including a standard widget selection on a users start page or to do things such as include  a specific document library, contact list or employee resource section although I imagine these can be emulated by creatively adapting some of the standard widgets.

The login page maintains the custom look and the paid version apparently also includes some back-end integration for user authentication (single sign-on, user provisioning) which administrators would like

The synchronisation of the calendar is courtesy of Google Calendar Sync, a client based synchronisation software plug-in that runs in the task bar. A server based back-end sync system with Exchange would be the ideal scenario but in the mean time calendar sync does the job especially as it can sync one way or both ways. The sync is configurable and appears as an icon in the task bar informing of the time of the last calendar synchronisation.

We still have to explore Google Web Pages, Sites and Chat but at the moment I can’t see much value in migrating to Google Mail as Exchange Server and Outlook are working well and OWA is our current preferred solution for offsite email access – also I don’t really fancy the ads that are included in the free version (these can be deactivated in the paid for version). A mail, task and contact synchronisation facility, similar to that of the calendar, with Outlook might be an interesting proposition and offer a valuable compromise.

The applications have the benefit of feeling familiar, if a little cluttered at times, but a little more integration and intuitiveness in use would make the system more appealing – for example a plug-in for Office for loading and saving documents. In an ideal world a combination of Google Apps and Office Live Workspace would be an ideal answer. However, we have to remember this is an early example of a platform in development and Google describe the platform well as “a bridge between our business and Google products” and not necessarily a replacement (not yet anyway).