The table below compares the Microsoft Exchange-based hosted service offered by a leading UK provider with the Google Apps Premier service offered by Four Lakes.
Note: All costs are per user per month unless otherwise stated
Google v Exchange
Exchange Google Apps
Base service £4.99 £4.17
Web Mail Std Std
Outlook via POP3/IMAP Std Std
Outlook via RPC £2.01 n/a
Outlook Licence £0.50 n/a
Mobile Active Sync/Push Email £2.50 Std
Mail storage 1.1 GB 25 GB
Additional disk space £1.50 per 500MB < 50p for 20GB
Uptime SLA 99.9% 99.9%
Blackberry access £5.00 Std
Instant Messaging (Live Communications / Google Talk) £2.50 Std
Document sharing £2.50 Std
Document storage 100MB Included in 25GB mail storage allowance
Additional document storage £1.50 per 500MB See mail storage
Spam and virus protection Std Std
As you can see, whilst the headline costs are very similar, you would have to pay a lot extra to bring the basic Exchange service up to the standard of the Google Apps service. So if you are looking for the best mobile office service, talk to us about moving to Google Apps Premier Edition.