New! Use Microsoft Outlook with Google Apps

Today we're excited to announce that it's even easier to make the switch to Google Apps with Google Apps Sync for Microsoft Outlook. This new feature lets customers use Microsoft Outlook seamlessly with Google Apps Premier or Education Editions.

Many businesses are interested in adopting Google Apps but they've been unable to make the transition because of some employees that do not want to give up the familiar Microsoft Outlook interface. Now with Google Apps Sync for Microsoft Outlook, businesses can move forward deploying Google Apps, even if some users want to keep using Outlook. The plug-in enables employees to switch from Outlook to the Gmail interface at their own pace giving them their choice of interface, and IT departments their choice of email infrastructure.

Key features include:

- Email, calendar and contacts synchronization. For email, the plug-in uses the offline Gmail protocol, which is much faster than IMAP or other methods.
- Free/Busy lookup and Global Address List functionality, which makes it easy to schedule meetings with your colleagues, regardless of whether they use Outlook's calendar or Google Calendar.
- A simple, two-click data migration tool which allows employees to easily copy existing data from Exchange or Outlook into Google Apps.

Three key service providers - NuVox, Netfirms and IKANO - have already begun offering Google Apps Sync. NuVox, a leading telecom provider in the Southeast and Midwest, sees "an incredible response to Google Apps from [our] customer base," says CEO Jim Akerhielm. "We’re excited that Google Apps Sync helps our customers stop running Exchange and spend more time focusing on their core business." Netfirms, which powers 1.2m websites in the U.S. and Canada, is launching Google Apps to their customers in concert with Google Apps Sync. George Mitsopoulos, V.P. of DNA Mail (an IKANO company) says, "Google Apps Sync gives our customers even more options while minimizing our deployment effort. It's 'install, launch and you're ready to go."

To help you leverage this feature, and the recently launched Google Apps Connector for BlackBerry Enterprise Server, to sell Google Apps more effectively, we're holding webinars next week to accommodate our partners in various time zones. This will be the first in a series of Master Seller Webinars aimed at making our partners more successful. For those of you that can't attend, all Master Seller Webinars will be archived on the Solution Providers site so you can access them anytime.

We hope you will be able to join us next week to get live overviews and sales tips from our Product and Marketing Managers.

Webinar Details for North America
Wednesday, June 17, 2009
10:00 am PDT, 1:00 pm EDT
Register

Webinar Details for Europe, Middle East and Africa
Thursday, June 18, 2009
3:00 pm BST, 4:00 pm CET
Register

Webinar Details for Asia and Asia Pacific
TBD - please check the Solution Providers site over the next few weeks for an update

Until then you can review the Google Apps Sync for Microsoft Outlook sales training presentation in the Marketing section of the Solution Providers site. This is the presentation that we will walk you through during the webinar at which time you can also ask questions. To see a demo of how the plug-in works, watch this 3 minute video.