I was just wondering if anyone here has any experience migrating an in-house mail server to the Google mail for providers version.
We’re considering it and wanted to hear success/horror stories.
Moved 5 hosted domains over for corporate customers - they love it
Planning to move airCloud.net mail users soon.
I can think of worse companies to partner with.
Jerry,
I know the ISP mail hosting is free, but isnt there a charge for std. domain customers?
any links with info about this?
cool thanks 
Free with ads like typical free GMail
Paid (Premium) for no ads and larger email box.
we switched our main user domain to google apps for your domain a couple years ago when it was still in beta. we have never looked back. the service is free (can’t get a better price than that!) the spam filter is AWESOME. they support all kinds of mobile devices and just about any mail client your customers will throw at you.
all in all it’s an excellent product and i’d highly recommend it. one less server for me to worry about.
Okay, next question: Can my clients continue to use our current mail settings, or will I need to touch every client to reconfigure email accounts? Many of our users only have the username in the username field, so I assume we’ll have to help them all add the @domain.com to the end?
Thanks for the info everyone.
you will want to set up the google account and then add all your current user names BEFORE changing your MX records.
you can “batch” upload a cvs file with all the account usernames and create passwords for them or use randomly generated ones. we use a default easy password for all users and then set the account to require them to pick a new password at first login. google has instruction for what to include in the CVS file.
once they have the account and password all set thru the web interface you can then enable POP and/or IMAP in the web interface prefrences (has to be done individually for each account as far as i know) and follow the instructions for their particular mail client.
**You will generate A LOT of tech support calls when you first make the change. just warn all your users that their mail will land in their inbox and can always be checked thru the webmail till they set up outlook or whatever client.
we tried to convince as many as possible to use the web interface for at least couple weeks cause it has a lot of cool features and since everything is on the server their computer is “safer” from viruses and spam etc.
when we switched we had about 200 users on our mail system and the first month was hell…i won’t lie. but the end result is really worth the headache you’ll endure for about a month. you will be answering the same call over and over about how to set up outlook etc. google has a lot of good help files about exporting contacts and importing them to the Gmail system etc.
we now have over 1000 users and the management is such a breeze. like i said well worth the headache!!!
I would recommend setting up your domain (until you change your MX records nothing will change for your clients) and read all the google documentation you can before proceed.
good luck!