Earlier this week, we released improved versions of Google Apps Migration for Lotus Notes and Google Calendar Connector for Lotus Notes. The migration tool has more than 40 new features to make moving from your Lotus Notes environment to Google's cloud even easier. Here are our favorites:

• Support for OAuth, so you don't need to store administrator and user passwords to migrate mail, calendar and contacts
  
• User provisioning can be run as a separate module prior to user migration, so you can verify users have been provisioned as you like before migrating data
  
• Enhanced logging capabilities so you can see what migration actions were taken
  
• Support for assigning group owners from migrated Domino Directory groups
  
• Improved support for migrated calendar events and push synchronization for BlackBerry® devices
  
• Simpler migration tool interface
  

Head over to the download page to read more about the new migration functionality and get the update. Please also visit our user forums if you have any questions or comments!

Posted by Colin Neale, Technical Solutions Engineer

Customers moving to Google Apps are migrating email, calendar and contacts data from several different legacy systems, and many are doing so from mixed sources including data stored on end user machines and company servers. With this in mind, we’re constantly trying to make it really easy, fast and painless for you to migrate data in each of these scenarios.

We launched Google Apps Migration for Microsoft® Exchange last March to help Microsoft Exchange administrators perform centrally-managed migrations from Exchange servers. In May we announced Google Apps Migration for Microsoft Outlook, which allows end-users to move their data from PST files and Outlook profiles. Customers are also migrating from other systems such as Novell® GroupWise®, hosted Exchange and sometimes even from previous Gmail accounts. We are happy to announce that we are extending support for these migrations going forward with the introduction of new features to Google Apps Migration for Microsoft Exchange:

IMAP support – Administrators can use the tool’s new IMAP capabilities to migrate email from systems like Novell Groupwise to Google Apps, or even migrate data between Google Apps accounts.

PST support – Administrators can migrate PST files on behalf of users in their domain once they have aggregated users' data files in one location.

Better support for hosted Exchange – Administrators can now migrate data from hosted Exchange by running the migration tool on local servers, without requiring the Exchange hosting partner to run any special software on their end.

Check out the on-demand webcast to learn more about these new features, best practices, and more.

Posted by Abhishek Bapna, Product Manager

Editor's Note: Please welcome our guest blogger, James Ferreira, Chief Information Officer for the Office of the New Mexico Attorney General. He provides IT services to the largest law office in the state. James Ferreira has the privilege of serving the New Mexico public as Attorney General Gary King's CIO. Mr. Ferreira is tasked with the responsibility of facilitating the communication between the public and nearly 200 office staff, including attorneys. Additionally, Mr. Ferreira has served as a member on many committees including the NM Information and Technology committee, NM Technical Counsel, Department of Information and Technology Project Review Committee and the Conference of Western Attorneys General WAGGY committee.

Please join us for a live webcast on Thursday, November 12, 2009 2:00 PM ET / 11:00 AM PT / 7:00 PM GMT where James will be on hand to answer your questions about his office's switch to Google Apps from Microsoft Exchange (3rd party registration required).

Attorneys rely heavily on documents like pleadings, deposition transcripts, exhibits, briefs and other legal materials. In the New Mexico Attorney General’s Office, we have 120 attorneys and 200 full-time employees whose jobs revolve around documents. And it's not just the attorneys. Imagine the news releases, media advisories, scripts and other materials that our communications department has to produce.

We essentially use email as our day-to-day file and case management system, so it is mission-critical. Our previous Microsoft Exchange email solution was falling short – especially regarding the need to safeguard and backup sensitive emails. We looked at moving to a clustered system of in-house email servers for failovers, but we calculated the cost at $300,000, not including continual upgrades.

We began searching for something with ample inbox storage, easy backup and data redundancy and perhaps most importantly, a system that offered high security and reliability. Google Apps Premier Edition emerged as the clear alternative. To put it in perspective, Google Apps and Gmail can support any attorney over the course of a whole career, storing and backing up every email he or she ever sends. Google Apps Premier Edition also passed muster with well-known third-party security auditing organizations.

The move to Google Apps took minimal time and effort, and our users now appreciate the reliability and large storage quotas of their new email system. We have realized many additional cost savings. For instance, we have created a prototype Google Docs archiving solution, using the Documents API. In addition, a few years ago, the department paid more than $50,000 for replication software to store data from a SAN to a disaster recovery site. It didn't work very well – but is no longer required with Google Apps. We also spend less time and money on licensing. In the past, I often joked that we needed to check if we needed a license for the license with our former software vendor. With Google Apps, we get the whole deal up front.

Google Apps Premier Edition was a good fit for the Attorney General's Office. It provides secure, available, and searchable access to documents and emails, while reducing costs and lessening workloads for our busy IT staff. It has reduced the "paper chase" across the board, from attorneys to our busy communications staff. I hope you can join me on a live webcast this Thursday where I'll take your questions about "going Google."

Microsoft Exchange or Google Apps? One Government Agency Goes Google
Thursday, November 12, 2009

2:00 PM ET / 11:00 AM PT / 7:00 PM GMT

Posted by Serena Satyasai, Google Apps team

Find customer stories and research product information on our resource sites for current users of Microsoft Exchange and Lotus Notes/Domino.

Editor's Note: We're pleased to welcome guest blogger Allen Falcon, CEO and owner of Horizon Info Services, LLC, a Google partner that helps businesses make a fast and easy transition to Google Apps. Horizon's goal is to provide businesses with 1 to 500 employees with best-in-class solutions that are typically only within reach of larger corporations – all at a price they can afford. Horizon Info Services is a Google Enterprise Partner and Authorized Reseller for Google Apps and Google Postini Services.
My friend Jeff Lerman of Cold Spring Design – specialists in website design, hosting, and maintenance – was rebuilding the websites for Massachusetts-based Fitness Management Services (FMS) and its two health club properties, Worcester Fitness and Plymouth Fitness. While he was working on the website redesigns, he noticed that the company was struggling with its email service and needed a better solution.

Among other things, the small company was tired of spam and problems with outbound mail flow. Employees also wanted to share calendars, schedule resources, and publish fitness schedules on its website without having to buy more software.

Jeff reviewed our presentation comparing Google Apps with an in-house Microsoft Exchange solution and did the math. Setting up an in-house email system was never going to happen: hardware, software, networking, security, administration, and backups would be too much for a company that must keep its overhead trim. Jeff and Fitness Management Services (FMS) knew right away that a hosted solution was the way to go.

A serious contender in hosted solutions
A hosted solution would provide a fully managed service and infrastructure, simple pricing, no specialized hardware or software to maintain, and no need to add storage capacity or manage complex backups. After reviewing multiple options, they came to a clear decision: Google Apps was the best choice given the capacity, features, and low cost. Other providers offered a mere 4GB of storage space, while Google Apps offered 25GB. And we liked the other features. Google Apps provided integrated instant messaging, VoIP and video, as well as tools for web-based collaboration as part of the package.

The list went on and on – with the pluses in terms of features, capacity, and cost as well as scalability and easy integration all weighing in on the Google Apps side of the balance sheet. We evaluated the feature enhancements and savings potential and shared it with the FMS team.