I don't have time for a full Incite this morning, since we are loading everyone into the family truckster and heading back to the ATL. It's nice to spend the holidays with family, but I'm definitely looking forward to getting back to Incite Central, sleeping in own bed and treading back in my stomping grounds.

Before the holidays I mentioned my desire to drop Exchange. I got a lot of positive feedback and lots of suggestions for how to navigate the move. Thanks for everyone who gave me some pointers.

Right before Xmas, I DID IT. It was actually surprisingly easy, although I've had to jump through some hoops to get everything to sync correctly. I haven't cut the cord to the Office suite yet. I'll try Mac Office 2008 when it comes out later this month and then decide between that and iWork. Now that I'm not beholden to Exchange, I don't have to deal with the misery that is Entourage.

Although I am concerned that Google is increasingly running my life, I decided to go with Google Apps for Your Domain. It was really easy and costs nothing. Nada. Zero. I considered (for about two seconds) building my own server using Zimbra, but then I decided I am in the analyst business - not the running an email server business. Not when Google's stuff is free.

I control my DNS, so it was just a matter of proving that I owned the domain (you upload a file to your site and Google finds it), and then pointing my MX records to Google. The change hit almost instantly and I started getting email in my spanking new Gmail account. Then I used IMAP to move all the mail from Exchange to Gmail. That took a bit of time, but I needed to clean out Exchange (no need to keep it around anymore) and being able to search my old mail was critical.

Mail and Calendar - it still works...

I do have to say that I like the Gmail web interface. It took me a day or so to get acclimated, but the conversations view is unbelievable. It's amazing that the other web-based services haven't moved to that model. Yahoo! are you listening? I also have my mail replicated to Mail.app, but I like the web interface better. For now anyway...

Google also does a great job fighting spam. I get about 2-3 in my inbox a day. A bunch are in my spam folder and lord knows how many don't even make it that far. I was going to pay the $50 for Google Apps Premium, mostly for Postini - but I haven't felt compelled to do that. I'll probably upgrade once space starts getting tight (Apps Free comes with 6 GB for email), but not quite yet.

My calendar is in Google now as well and I use a product called Spanning Sync to keep both of my work Macs and my GCal syncronized. Personally, I still like using a fat calendar client, so I've been using iCal. I've been able to schedule meetings and do all the usual calendaring stuff.

Contacts - not so much...

The biggest issue to date has been syncronizing my contacts. I exported my Outlook address book and imported it into GMail and the Mac Address Book. I'm using a .Mac trial to keep things syncronized between the Macs, but there is no syncronization to Google now, and that's a bit of a hassle. My hope is that Google opens up an API to the contacts data, so then Spanning Sync can sync that up too. That would be optimal.

Blackberry is workable

What about my Blackberry? That was what kept me beholded to Exchange for so long. I'm happy to say that I've got most things syncronized and it's working OK. Is it as clean as the BB/Exchange integration? Not by a long shot, but it's good enough. First for mail, I use the GMail mobile interface. It works well (although it needs a network connection). The Gmail client for BB doesn't support labels yet, so that's a pain, but I can delete and archive messages. Thus I only deal with most messages (unless they need a label) once - which is critical to my workflow.

I tried to do IMAP from my BB to Gmail, but the sync wasn't clean. If I deleted anything using the Gmail interface (or Mail.app for that matter), I had to also delete it on the BB. Not interesting. What about getting through my Mail up in the air? Basically, it hasn't been that much of an issue. Before I fly I download stuff to Mail.app. If I need a message, it's there. I'm trying to keep email to only 2-3 sessions a day, so the always-on connectivity of the BB was getting to be kind of a liability anyway.

Calendar sync couldn't be easier. Google has a mobile sync product and it just works. The best I can say is that I don't even know it's there. I make a change in GCal or iCal or even on the BB and it's synced to all the places where my calendar is. Automatically and transparently. What else could you ask for?

For contact sync, I use PocketMac. It requires I actually plug the BB in and sync to my Mac, and that's a huge pain in the ass. I'm hoping that Google does a similar OTA sync as they do with calendar.

Hope is not a strategy and Microsoft should be scared

I guess I'm saying "I hope" a lot. But the reality is I'm saving about $30 a month by doing this. That may not be a lot to you, but it is to me. Between the $22/month I'm not paying for hosted Exchange and the $10 for BES connectivity to T-mobile - it's over $30 a month in savings. To be clear, I did pay $25 for Spanning Sync but that was for an annual license. The capabilities don't perfectly map to Exchange/BB, but it's very workable.

Sayonara Exchange. I don't miss ya, and if anything I have no idea why any small business would be looking at Microsoft's collaboration stuff now. If you have less than 20 employees (maybe more), building a Microsoft Small Business Server and having to provide access and back-ups and the like makes no sense. Microsoft better get their Live stuff working and build clean hooks between Exchange on prem and Live in the cloud or Google is going to eat their lunch in the SMB space.