I have a gmail account that I use for personal stuff and my own domain for work stuff (targetmedia.net). Obviously I can access my gmail from anywhere/any device but generally my work email is just done through Outlook on the PC in my office – although if I’m at my mums house in Wales I will use a a netbook to get it but still though a mail client.
I’ve been thinking about portability and it seems to make sense to be able to access my work email from anywhere also.
I can set up gmail to send mail from my targetmedia.net address so that’s pretty simple – but is it the right thing to do? Anybody use gmail to handle their work emails and does it work for you?

Google sell business services to SMEs based around Google Mail…..

My entire life is in google mail. Im a business subscriber though.
EDIT^ like wot ff says. Costs $50 a user a year, but frankly Id pay 3 times that for the great service I get. Dont forget no ads in emails either as a paying customer. I also have my own domain and mail is handled by google.

Its fantastic.

Platform independent access to all my mail, contacts calendars, files, music, pictures, podcasts, etc etc from anywhere in the world. continuously synchronised with my main pc. Really cant fault it (except for when you fill up your google drive space and after a clear out end up with a load of replica syncs to clean up, but Iv sorted that by making sure I never use more than 80% of drive space)

I can access emails on my own domain from anywhere via an IMAP client or through a web browser. I’d be surprised if you couldn’t also do this.

I can access emails on my own domain from anywhere via an IMAP client or through a web browser. I’d be surprised if you couldn’t also do this.

I can but it’s just not slick and I’m not sure it works too well with a mobile device – that said I think I’ve only used the demon webmail service about 4 times in nearly 20 years!

The UK government’s email is powered by Google. Make of that what you will.

😯

(or at least, the bits of it I know about anyway, dunno if it all is)

Mine is works great access everywhere all the time. Works through mobile really well.
Lots of other crm type apps to integrate too.

[quoteLots of other crm type apps to integrate too.[/quote]
I like this idea…. I need all the help I can get!

Our lot moved from Exchange Server to GMail last year – I **** hate it.

Email discussions that have loads of people included in are dangerous, especially if you only want to reply to some of them, it’s too easy to muck it up.
IMO it’s one big mess compared to Outlook
I now use something called Google Apps Sync with Outlook to try and bring some order to it.

(or at least, the bits of it I know about anyway, dunno if it all is)

The vast majority isn’t. HMG have their own, internally managed mail systems that have a tiered security structure. The upper tier is rated to handle emails at IL5, top secret. Not something you’d entrust to google.

I use Gmail through Apple Mail for everything (Mac and Iphone/Pad) – works fine for me.

IMO it’s one big mess compared to Outlook

How do you mean compared to Outlook – why can’t you use your gmail account with Outlook? I must be missing something.

The upper tier is rated to handle emails at IL5, top secret. Not something you’d entrust to google.

Ah, makes sense. The bit I’m referring to is, I think, IL0. So doesn’t really matter.

You can also drop it out to outlook….

We are using insightly, zoho a bit and mail chimp. There is another invoicing and account management thing in there too. Using a combination of docs and dropbox as we work remotely.

I’m talking about work use here BTW – Gmail is great when you’re not getting 200+ per day

How do you mean compared to Outlook – why can’t you use your gmail account with Outlook? I must be missing something.

as I said, I use Google apps sync

Our whole company runs on Google Mail, with Outlook Google Sync.

I migrated them over from an ageing Exch 2003 system.

Don’t ignore the Microsoft option in Office 365:
http://www.microsoft.com/en-gb/office365/compare-plans.aspx

But if you like google/gmail I see no reason not to

Don’t ignore the Microsoft option

😐
[shudders]

Email discussions that have loads of people included in are dangerous, especially if you only want to reply to some of them, it’s too easy to muck it up.

Agreed, I hate the Gmail client. That’s why I use PostBox or Outlook – that way you get to handle threads etc in the traditional way.

Costs $50 a user a year, but frankly Id pay 3 times that for the great service I get. Dont forget no ads in emails either as a paying customer. I also have my own domain and mail is handled by google.

I use gmail for my work email, free, don’t get any ads and use my own domain. Not that $50 is a lot, but what extra do you get for it? BTW used to have MS Exchange accounts through BT, cost about £8 per month per user (I think) and it was utter shite compared to (free) Google.

I have a personal gmail acount.

I also own a domain name.

I do all my email using my domain name through the same gmail session & account. You need to go to your domain provider & simply forward all emails to your gmail account. In gmail you then set up a new account. I have hundreds. Then for every email that comes in gmail automatically sets the reply email address correctly as well as the desired signature.

So I have different emails for example:
bill.natwest@mydomain.co.uk
bill.halifax@mydomain.co.uk
etc…

You could split them out & still using just gmail using two different browsers, say firefox for work & chrome for personal account.

zilog I have this
http://www.google.com/intl/en_uk/enterprise/apps/business/

I imagine Im paying to have multiple users on a single platform. I assume you just have your own gmail on your own?

I imagine Im paying to have multiple users on a single platform. I assume you just have your own gmail on your own?

No, we have 5 users (on the same domain name). I have the free version of Google Apps though, not the “business” version. I’ll look into that and see if has anything interesting to offer us!

Business version has some email backup and 25 gb per user instead of 10. You can also use the google apps sync to stick you old outlook mails up onto google. After that I’m not sure why you would use it any more.

There is some slightly nicer stuff you can do with lists but with only a handful of users you are unlikely to need it

I think the free google apps now onlyallows 10 accounts per domain although it used to be 100

Love it

hmm, interesting. Maybe time to downgrade to the free one.

We dont use 25Gb in mail (Im currently on 4.4gb and my box is probably 5x bigger than mrs stoners.)

We will never need more than 4 accounts.

I know eveyone at ITV has recently been moved over to gmail or a business type varient. She says it takes some getting used to but very good and easy to access any where.

Hi Stoner – why not just set up a free one and take a look around first. I’ve got about 90 users on one free one and never had a problem yet. The only downside is lack of email backup but we all use Outlook and so backup those files ourselves. Some accounts are up to 9GB now but then I just backup stuff more than 5yrs old and delete it online to free up space.

Our lot moved from Exchange Server to GMail last year – I **** hate it.

Same here. The upside is the US peeps who pushed it through are finding it just as awful as we do.

They are looking likely to move back to Outlook next year.

Our whole company runs on Google Mail, with Outlook Google Sync

Whereas ours won’t. They refuse to pay for 2 mail systems.

OK, so is the best way forward to create a new [work] gmail account, forward all my targetmedia.net email to that address and change that gmail account so all my replies come from targetmedia.net?

@ ScottChegg

We only have one email system in place – Google Mail at the back end, and Outlook / mobile devices at the front.

Nobody visits the GMail website.

The Google Sync Tool enables users to continue with Outlook (Calendars, Contacts, Email, Tasks, etc) as normal, but instead of Exchange it’s Google…

To our users, nothing has changed, apart from the have mobile email if they want it.

For those that don’t like Google’s “Conversation view” you can easily toggle to the old/traditional style way of viewing each message separately;

http://www.geek.com/articles/news/you-can-now-turn-off-gmails-email-threading-20100929/

To our users, nothing has changed, apart from the have mobile email if they want it.

Didn’t they have mobile mail previously with MS Exchange Webmail?

Our lot have shot themselves to some degree as they’ve also made it a two step verification for Gmail.
We have unconventional working patterns and used to check mail once a day or so when away on extended leave etc. now we don’t as it means taking our works mobiles with us and [even worse] switching them on.

Unfortunately, Google apps stopped offering free accounts a few days ago – all now paid, from $5 pet month IIRC. Doesn’t effect existing free accounts.

Prior to me arriving, the IT infrastructure was a mess. An unfortunate example of being designed (and looked after) by someone who didn’t know what they were doing *sigh*.

Webmail was broken beyond repair (years previously), as a result staff mobiles were not of the smart-phone generation.

cheeers bonjye – I seem to remember gettign that notification email now. Saves me the bother of having to try and down grade anyway 😉

OK, so is the best way forward to create a new [work] gmail account, forward all my targetmedia.net email to that address and change that gmail account so all my replies come from targetmedia.net?

That will work but it has an unfortunate side effect. People using Outlook as an email client will see ‘sharkbait@gmail.com on behalf of sharkbait@targetmedia.net’ in the ‘from’ address. It doesn’t show on some email clients but it does in Outlook.

The proper way to do it is change the mx records for your domain. Instructions are here I believe

Unfortunately, Google apps stopped offering free accounts a few days ago

Bummer 🙁

We use it, it’s refreshingly good when there are multiple recipients, the whole conversation being contained rather than multiple responses.

I have used Gmail since the start anyway so it’s all second nature to me now.

Isn’t gmail just MS Exchange in the background anyway?