On the heels of New South Wales Department of Education and Training’s announcement that it would dump its Microsoft’s Outlook/Exchange platform to migrate to Google Apps, other organizations across Australia are flirting with the notion of handing over their antiquated systems to Google as well.  Google has seen slower than anticipated adoption of its corporate suite, but that all might be changing in the near future.

According to ZDNet Australia, IT services firm SMS Management and Technology is seeing a much larger interest in Google than in recent times.  The firm sponsored the switch for the Dept. of Education and Training that saw nearly 1.3 million students make the switch from Exchange to GMail.  The firm also led Macquarie University in a similar initiative which signifies a distinct push for change across not only government and education departments, but for large enterprises as well.

"There’s been a fair bit of interest from the other education services around Australia," SMS industry director of business solutions Paul Cooper said.  "My sense is that there’s a number of eyes on the NSW solution, and I get the feeling that they [other groups] will certainly want to have a look at the success and how that operates first," he added.

The main advantage over Exchange and other proprietary solutions, is the fact that Google has the ability to link its tools with other applications in a technique known as creating "mashups".  Out-of-the-box solutions from Google automatically support this scenario, which is highly desirable by large enterprise.  This combined with fact that Google offers a significant cost reduction overall, especially with larger corporations, makes it a viable candidate for adoption. 

I see the switch as nothing but good news for anyone who adopts it.  A web-based environment, where the systems can be updated in real-time without costly over-hauls and security fixes like Microsoft requires, would be all I need to see before going forward.  I realize a switch of this magnitude could be a nightmare for IT executives, but once it’s all said and done, the benefits would greatly outweigh the strain.

Related: