Microsoft, as part of its mission to improve business productivity, has been providing business communication products for more than 15 years. From Microsoft Exchange Server 4.0 with Exchange Client to Exchange Server 2010 with the Microsoft Outlook 2010 messaging and collaboration client, Microsoft has proven its commitment to enterprise-level communication tools. This white paper covesr 10 areas where Microsoft Exchange Online continues to provide a superior business communications experience.
Ten Ways That Microsoft ® Exchange Works Better with Microsoft Outlook ® than Google Gmail Does Microsoft has been providing online services to people and organizations for more than 15 years. Microsoft employs tens of thousands of people and vast sources of information to support its online customers. Cloud computing is so central to Microsoft’s plans for cost-effective computing that Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer recently said, “About 75 percent of our folks are doing entirely cloud-based or entirely cloud-inspired [work]. A year from now that will be 90 percent….For the cloud, we’re all in.” Organizations of all sizes have long used Microsoft Outlook ® running on Microsoft Exchange Server to provide users with powerful yet intuitive messaging capabilities. Now, with Office 365, you can put part or all of your communications infrastructure online. This productivity solution provides enterprise-level messaging tools together with enterprise-level communications tools, and it interoperates with most of the devices that you already use, including PCs, Macs, BlackBerry, Android, Windows Phone, and iPhones, as well as all major Web browsers. Google claims that Gmail, its online messaging service, is an ideal alternative to Microsoft Outlook with Microsoft Exchange. While you can use a Google add-on, Google Apps Sync for Outlook , to run Microsoft Outlook as a front-end to Gmail, there are significant differences between using Outlook with Gmail with and Outlook with Exchange. Here are ten areas where these two combinations differ: Make an informed decision! Visit www.whymicrosoft.com 1
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Ten Ways That Microsoft® Exchange Works Better with Microsoft Outlook® than Google Gmail DoesMicrosoft has been providing online services to people and organizations for more than 15 years. Microsoft employs tens of thousands of people and vast sources of information to support its online customers. Cloud computing is so central to Microsoft’s plans for cost-effective computing that Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer recently said, “About 75 percent of our folks are doing entirely cloud-based or entirely cloud-inspired [work]. A year from now that will be 90 percent….For the cloud, we’re all in.”
Organizations of all sizes have long used Microsoft Outlook® running on Microsoft Exchange Server to provide users with powerful yet intuitive messaging capabilities. Now, with Office 365, you can put part or all of your communications infrastructure online. This productivity solution provides enterprise-level messaging tools together with enterprise-level communications tools, and it interoperates with most of the devices that you already use, including PCs, Macs, BlackBerry, Android, Windows Phone, and iPhones, as well as all major Web browsers.
Google claims that Gmail, its online messaging service, is an ideal alternative to Microsoft Outlook with Microsoft Exchange. While you can use a Google add-on, Google Apps Sync for Outlook, to run Microsoft Outlook as a front-end to Gmail, there are significant differences between using Outlook with Gmail with and Outlook with Exchange. Here are ten areas where these two combinations differ:
Outlook Web App provides the same rich features as Outlook
1) Familiar user experience. Microsoft Outlook, Outlook Web App, and Outlook Office Mobile all share a consistent user interface to give users the same experience across different devices and
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locations. Users are often already familiar with tools and options from past experience with similar Microsoft products, so they can get started with a new version right away, rather than facing a potential loss of productivity.
Exchange Online provides hosted unified messaging and voice mail services.
2) Rich set of features. Microsoft Outlook- and Exchange-related products and services offer a wide range of functionality, from unified communications to document collaboration, e-mail, voice mail, Internet-based voice calls, contact data, presence and scheduling, organizational structure information, video, audio and Web conferencing, meeting facilitation and document storage, document sharing, workflow, task lists with reminders, flags and categories, calendaring, and more. Google does not offer some of these services and features directly, instead recommending third-party solutions for core services and features such as Web conferencing and single sign-on service.
3) Full offline experience. With Outlook and Exchange, users can access important personal and organizational information even when they’re not connected to the Internet. Gmail uses Google Apps Sync for Outlook to store information on the client side. But Google Apps Sync for Outlook does not support Outlook productivity features and tools such as Categories, Tasks, Notes, Journal Entries, rules, signatures, delivery receipts, importance levels, follow-up flags and reminders, meeting invitation attachments and rich content such as images, links, and bold text, out-of-office responses, recalling sent messages, recovering deleted items, personal distribution lists, and more.
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4) Powerful security and compliance tools. Microsoft security features such as Digital Rights Management, encryption, digital signatures and policy-based e-mail management provide increased protection against data loss and theft. With both Microsoft Exchange Server and Exchange Online, you can address concerns about data privacy and security. With Gmail, you must deploy both Gmail and a separate Google application, Postini, to archive and retain email messages. Yet communication between Gmail and Postini is limited; for example, the two maintain separate directories.
IM and presence integration with Lync Online and Lync Server 2010
5) Connected applications. Besides working flawlessly with Microsoft Office and Microsoft Outlook, Microsoft Exchange is designed to work flawlessly with other Microsoft products such as Microsoft SharePoint® and Lync™ Server. These Microsoft products enable powerful collaboration and communications capabilities such as online presence, collaborative document markups in real time, document check-out and versioning, Web conferencing with conference recording, and communication with line-of-business applications such as SAP.
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6) Finding user information. The Global Address List feature, available with Exchange and Active Directory, displays details about people within an organization or across organizational boundaries, as set by IT policies. Google Apps Sync for Outlook can only partly duplicate this valuable resource—data such as additional phone numbers, company name, organizational hierarchy, employee titles, department names, and more are not available to Gmail users. In addition, Gmail does not support group addresses and out-of-domain contacts.
7) Resources for learning and support. Microsoft has connected a vast network of internal and external learning and support resources that provide access to subject matter experts, an extensive partner ecosystem, collaborative online forums, continually tested and updated product documentation and knowledge base articles, and thousands of training sessions, seminars, and user groups.
A small sample of the learning resources available for Microsoft Exchange and Outlook
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8) World-class customer service. Microsoft has a long-established customer-service organization that provides clear, understandable Service Level Agreements, and Microsoft has developed a comprehensive, highly structured method for resolving complex service issues with customers.
9) Industry-leading research investments. Microsoft has dedicated billions of dollars to researching and developing online services and co-creating new ways of working and communicating, and Microsoft continually refines its products through feedback from a variety of sources.
The Exchange Control Panel provides powerful Web-based management capabilities
10) Easy administration and deployment. Using Gmail can involve a significant amount of IT administration time. Besides deploying Google Apps Sync for Outlook, administrators often have to use manual processes and create and use custom scripts on individual machines to meet user needs. Most IT administrators are already proficient with typical Microsoft product commands and processes, and they can configure and manage Microsoft Outlook with Exchange centrally rather than through manual processes on individual machines.
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Product ListMicrosoft® Office 365 brings together cloud versions of the most trusted Microsoft communications and collaboration products with the latest version of the Microsoft desktop suite for businesses of all sizes:
Microsoft Office: The world’s leading productivity tool on the desktop (Office Professional Plus) and on the Web (Office Web Apps) now seamlessly connected and delivered with cloud services—for a comprehensive productivity experience across the PC, phone, and browser
Exchange Online: Cloud-based email, calendar and contacts with the most current antivirus and anti-spam solutions to help protect from viruses and spam
SharePoint Online: Cloud-based service for creating sites to connect colleagues, partners and customers. Includes enterprise social networking and customization options
Lync Online: Cloud-based instant messaging, presence, and online meeting experiences with screen sharing, voice-conferencing and video-conferencing
Extra Software that Gmail RequiresTo provide Gmail with the same functionality that you can find at no additional cost in Microsoft Exchange with Microsoft Outlook, you’ll need these extra applications and browser add-ons and plug-ins:
Google Apps Sync for Outlook to run Outlook on Google Apps instead of on Microsoft Exchange Exchange to Google Apps Migrator for bulk migration of email messages from Exchange to
Gmail DirSync or another application to synchronize the Gmail directory with Active Directory® MyOneLogin or a similar identity service to provide single-sign-on to Active Directory Postini to provide security and 10 years of email retention for Gmail Google Chrome to use the latest features in HTML version 5. Gmail Labs access (without IT oversight) for all users to use “experimental” Gmail features.
In addition, to provide some of the same functionality that you’ll find in the Microsoft Office 365 service, you’ll also need these applications and plug-ins:
Google Talk to provide instant messaging services Dimdim or a similar third-party Web conferencing service Google Voice and Video Plug-In to enable Web conferencing
For More InformationMicrosoft Exchange Online is designed for organizations that want all the benefits of cloud-based email, calendaring, security, and operational efficiency without sacrificing the many enterprise-class capabilities that Exchange Server has provided for decades. To learn more about Microsoft Exchange Online, visit:
To learn more about Microsoft Office 365, which provides cloud versions of the most trusted Microsoft communications and collaboration products with the latest version of Microsoft Office, visit:
