Solve360 Discussion Forums

Moving from hard disk(s) to Google Doc?

Mar 03, 2010 04:03am Vedran Lyncean 51 posts	One of the posts on these forums (as well as Solve360 itself) got me thinking in the direction of moving all my MS Office files from hard disks to Google Docs. Basically I have the following rough idea: to ask all my employees to stop using MS Office and switch to Google Docs for all their doc, ppt and xls files. To have one Google account in company name, where all the files are stored and that all my employees can access by individual folders (i.e. sales staff can access sales-related documents). I see a problem with e-mail, can I use Gmail with my Rackspace-hosted domain? Or is there another solution that allows me to do this (a little bit more advanced than basic Rackspace webmail solution)? Since I have zero experience with Google Docs I would greatly welcome input from those of you that do. Can this be setup the way I imagined it? What are the pros and cons of using Google Docs from your experience? Many thanks in advance.

Mar 03, 2010 06:55am adrian@vm Lyncean 352 posts	Vedran - Mar 03, 2010 04:03am One of the posts on these forums (as well as Solve360 itself) got me thinking in the direction of moving all my MS Office files from hard disks to Google Docs. Basically I have the following rough idea: to ask all my employees to stop using MS Office and switch to Google Docs for all their doc, ppt and xls files. To have one Google account in company name, where all the files are stored and that all my employees can access by individual folders (i.e. sales staff can access sales-related documents). I see a problem with e-mail, can I use Gmail with my Rackspace-hosted domain? Or is there another solution that allows me to do this (a little bit more advanced than basic Rackspace webmail solution)? Since I have zero experience with Google Docs I would greatly welcome input from those of you that do. Can this be setup the way I imagined it? What are the pros and cons of using Google Docs from your experience? Many thanks in advance. Hi Vedran, Moving to Google Apps is pretty painless. I actually just wrote a post about the comparison between MSFT and Google Apps on our blog: http://bit.ly/acBQm3 When you go to move Google Apps on your domain, you have the option to use Gmail in place of your current webmail. So that’s not a problem. Now in terms of storing everything in Google Docs, vs On-Site vs. On Solve360 etc., it really depends on what we’re talking about. Spreadsheets? PDFs? Auto-CAD files? PSDs? If you have a lot of Power Office users - people who are Excel masters that are using complex formulas / Word ninjas who are creating completely knock-out documents, they will find the Google Docs a little wanting. For PowerPoint, I’ve been using SlideRocket, which is a pretty fantastic replacement for PPT in every way. With that said, most SMBs can get 80 to 90% of what MS Office does in Google Docs - and the Calendering / Gmail combo is really where the value is. Also, a lot of probably what you’re looking to do could be achieved in Solve360 with the right configuration. Especially for focusing your documents and keeping them client / project specific. If you’ve got questions or want some help sorting this stuff out, send me an email at , or have a look at our website: http://www.vm-associates.com. cheers adrian

Mar 03, 2010 07:51am Vedran Lyncean 51 posts	Thanka Adrian, you were very helpful. I was concerned about the email issue but if I can use e-mail with my own domain through gmail that solves my main concern regarding Google Apps.

Mar 03, 2010 07:54am adrian@vm Lyncean 352 posts	Vedran - Mar 03, 2010 07:51am Thanka Adrian, you were very helpful. I was concerned about the email issue but if I can use e-mail with my own domain through gmail that solves my main concern regarding Google Apps. cheers - if you’ve got someone tech saavy, they can probably figure out how to configure the host for google apps - there are plenty of tutorials on their site.