A day of these employees includes receiving a lot of e-mails – inter departmental coordination, keeping track of pending projects, and scheduling meetings.

As the IT manager of this Los Angeles based company, how would you zero down on an email service that is cost-effective & reliable?

Well, luckily there are options available today. Unlike in the past, when Microsoft Exchange on a windows server was the most popular Business Software available, Google Apps is now in the market as well & plans to be a strong competitor to the Microsoft Office Outlook office suite.

During a recession ( & even after it ), if saving cost is theone of the objective you have, the Google Apps web based solution wins the battle hands down. It costs 1/3 of Microsoft Exchange which is very significant cost saving.

Google Apps requires no Hardware/Software to buy or maintain. On the other hand, the Hardware Software list for Microsoft Exchange is as follows -

• Windows Server®
• Client Access Licenses
• Exchange Server License
• Exchange CALs
• Client app (Office/Outlook)

Google Apps unlike Microsoft Exchange offers a flat annual fee for its most advanced solution.

Emails form a very major part of every business house & reliability is a priority with a lot of IT consultants to ensure minimum data loss. Google Apps guarantees 99.9% uptime & the average downtime per month is less than 15 minutes. Microsoft Exchange, on the other hand, has an average downtime of 2.5 hours per month with its uptime dependent on the companies itself.

With the latest offering of the Google Apps Sync for Microsoft Outlook, Google has gone a step further & provided Microsoft Outlook users access multiple Google offerings like Apps, calendar & Contacts through Outlook itself – makes a lot of sense for users who were skeptic about shifting to a new email service provider after using Microsoft Exchange for a long time.

However, as mentioned earlier, a company should evaluate both the options in detail keeping in mind the requirements of the businesses. For many small companies, Google Apps is a sure shot winner – cost – as they say – can make or break things.