By Steve Ragan Jun 26, 2007, 15:06 GMT
This week, Google said it is adding mail migration to Google Apps. Mail migration is just one of over thirty features and updates to the service Google has rolled out since February 2007, when they started pushing the software and a service business platform. They call the update one more example of the power of hosted services to deliver updates and innovations to users quickly, without making them wait years for the next big scheduled upgrade.
“Our new self-service mail migration tools enable administrators using the Premier and Education Editions to easily copy existing mail from an IMAP server over to Google Apps. Now businesses and schools can spend less time worrying about "maintaining infrastructure" and focus more on the things that matter most to them -- like healthcare or educating students,” Google said on their blog about the feature.
One of the first organizations to test the new feature, Central Piedmont Community College, switched to Google form their old email system, which managed over thirty thousand users, in less than three weeks. “That process came down to three million emails flying from their server over to ours in just 24 hours -- more than 2,000 emails per minute, all without missing a beat,” Google said.
“We're excited about the new mail migration feature because it will make it easier for organizations to get started on Google Apps Premier and Education Editions and give their old email new life -- in many cases, that email is sitting in storage, covered with metaphorical dust and difficult to search,” Google said in a statement. “Administrators use a self-service wizard to easily and securely transfer existing email data from an IMAP server over to users' GMail accounts on Google Apps. GMail will put messages into conversation threads, display the original sender, recipient, and date of messages, and convert existing mail folders into labels. Old messages are instantly searchable with GMail's fast Google-powered search.” It is important to note the tool currently supports servers with an IMAP interface only. Something most large Enterprise email networks can enable if needed.
Along with migration tools, Google also launched some other new features including a Shared Address book for everyone in the Google Apps domains. When composing a new email or sharing a document, you will now have the option to search through all the users on your domain, even if they aren’t in your personal contact list. Need to send a note Paula S. in Sales, but aren’t sure of her email address? As long as she has a Google Apps account on your organization's domain, all you have to do is type in the first few letters, ‘Pau …’, and your address book will help with the rest,” Google explains.
Other improvements according to Google, Charts inside Google Docs & Spreadsheets More GMail attachment space, increasing the file size to 20MB, Multi user chats on Google Talk from their start page, and the also plan to improve Docs and Spreadsheets further in the future. “Soon we'll complete a visual overhaul of Docs & Spreadsheets that will make it much easier for users with dozens or even hundreds of documents to search, locate, and organize their documents.”
More information is online: http://www.google.com/a
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