Google Apps Finally Has Rich Text In Signatures

I guess I should admit that I've been a closet Outlook user for the past several months. Sometimes I felt I needed to send emails with my rich text email signature, busy and gaudy as it may be, and Google Apps simply didn't have that feature. Since Google Apps uses Gmail, this all applies to Gmail users.

It looks like my closet Outlook days are done! You can see what my signature looks like below - much prettier than simple text, although some might suggest that beauty in this case is in the eye of the beholder. 

I upgraded to Office 2010 but needed to stay with Outlook 2007 because of compatibility issues with Google Sync. Now I don't have to worry about it, and neither do you! 

Here is  the Official Google Blog post on upgrades to Google Apps, including the rich text signature at

Google Apps highlights – 7/16/2010

Here is the old text signature: 
-- 
Michael Boys
General Manager
On-Site Technical Solutions, Inc. 

(949) 212-2168 (m)
(702) 446-3556 (fax)
(866) 724-8946 toll free

Michael@On-SiteOC.com 

Visit us at www.On-SiteOC.com

The contents of this email are confidential and proprietary correspondence of On-Site Technical Solutions, Inc. and/or its clients; and are covered by the Electronic Communications Privacy Act, 18 U.S.C. Sections 2510-2521. Interception of this email is unlawful and access by persons to whom the email is not addressed is unauthorized. If you are not the intended recipient, any disclosure, copying, or distribution of the contents of this email may subject you to both criminal and civil penalties.


and here is the rich text signature: 
-- 

Michael Boys

General Manager

   

(949) 212-2168 (m)

(866) 724-8946 toll free

Michael@On-SiteOC.com

Visit us at www.On-SiteOC.com

You should follow us at http://twitter.com/MHBoys

The contents of this email are confidential and proprietary correspondence of On-Site Technical Solutions, Inc. and/or its clients; and are covered by the Electronic Communications Privacy Act, 18 U.S.C. Sections 2510-2521. Interception of this email is unlawful and access by persons to whom the email is not addressed is unauthorized. If you are not the intended recipient, any disclosure, copying, or distribution of the contents of this email may subject you to both criminal and civil penalties.

  

Visit On-Site Technical Solutions for information on how you can move to Google Apps or other Cloud Computing applications. We can also help you with your mobile computing. You should follow us on Twitter here. Call or text me at 949-212-2168.

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Google Apps - A Bona Fide Competitor to Exchange

Microsoft still dominates the email world and desktop, especially in the enterprise. In a bid to maintain that dominance and compete with a growing range of Cloud vendors (especially Google), Microsoft is migrating customers to hosted Exchange and Office 2010 will include limited free web versions of the Office tools.

While larger organizations are not yet migrating away from Exchange and Office, it's not readily apparent to me how Microsoft is going to successfully compete with the new tools available, especially  Google Apps. Google continues to add functionality and integrate Google Apps with other applications in a much quicker development cycle than Microsoft. Add to that pricing - here is Google's online calculator comparing the cost of Google Apps Premier Edition to Microsoft Exchange 2007. For cost sensitive businesses, and who isn't these days, this calculator alone is a compelling reason to at least look at Google, if not make the switch.

When On-Site Technical Solutions looked at Google Apps late last year we pretty much scoffed at the application and told ourselves it was simply not an effective business tool. When we looked again early this summer, we found a tool that could certainly replace Microsoft Exchange, especially in smaller organizations running Exchange primarily for mail and shared calendars. We became our own guinea pigs before beginning to roll Google Apps out to our customers. Some of us are still using Outlook to manage the mail with Google Sync, but others are simply using the web interface. Since we rolled out Google Apps this summer Google has added or improved to do lists, folders in documents, sync, and well, take a look here.

The Los Angeles City Council approved a contract to migrate their 30,000 employees to Google and according to the LA Times Microsoft was furiously fighting off the challenge.

Google has been rolling along in the education arena with free email and collaboration tools for schools. Back in September Google highlighted their education success on their blog with the headline Five million students going back to school are "going Google." But the LA city contract is worth a reported $7.25m and opens the door to smaller cities if Google is successful in LA.

Swapping out mail in an enterprise is a very large project. I would expect larger organizations to lag in implementing a new mail system, or any cloud application for that matter. It's a very big, costly deal and the organization needs someone in IT to bank their career on driving the change.  As Google continues to add functionality it's going to be more difficult for Microsoft to compete with the current pricing.

You should follow me on Twitter here. Call or text me at 1-949-212-2168 and visit On-Site Technical Solutions.

Other Links:

Microsoft Exchange Server or Google Apps? A Comparison

Google Apps is now an Exchange-replacement; Users can even keep Outlook

Exchange 2010 tries to fend off Google Apps

Google Apps: A Long Road Ahead

Outlook Separation Anxiety Holds Back Google Apps

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Outlook (finally) coming to the Mac

This may turn out to be a case of too little too late. We can finally use Outlook on Macs just when companies like On-Site Technical solutions are looking to diversify their customers from Outlook to other applications like Google Apps.

Can you say Google Chrome OS? Will that new OS render the Mac/PC debate obsolete? Not for a few years, but changes are coming!

From The Register.

Outlook (finally) coming to the Mac

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Google App Sync Guns For Microsoft Exchange

In response to challenges on many fronts Microsoft is changing its business model. We won't recognize the software giant we've learned to love or hate (or both) the last 20 years three years from now. It's going to look much more like the competition - Google, Amazon, salesorce.com and the list keeps growing.

On-Site Technical Solutions is working with some of our customers to migrate to Google Apps as a more affordable option for smaller enterprises. Here is InformationWeek discussing the Google Apps challenge to Microsoft.

Google App Sync Guns For Microsoft Exchange

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