Microsoft New Zealand has put a brave face on the revelation that the Postal Service Group (PSG) of NZ Post is moving to Google Apps, hoping to save NZ$2 million over three years.
Microsoft New Zealand has put a brave face on the
revelation that the Postal Service Group (PSG) of NZ Post
is moving to Google Apps, hoping to save NZ$2 million over three
years.
They'll
continue to use our technology on the desktop, as well as some
servers
Microsoft NZ chief Kevin Ackhurst
As part of a three-year deal, PSG will replace a raft of
Microsoft products with Google Apps, such
as email, calendaring, collaboration, text and video instant
messaging, as well as document creation.
Kevin Ackhurst, Microsoft New Zealand's managing director, said
there was no competitive tender for the PSG deal. He'd like to see
more detail on how the figures stack up, especially once training
and migration costs have been factored in.
However, speaking to ZDNet.com.au today, Ackhurst did not dispute that PSG would save money under the deal and noted Microsoft probably couldn't have saved PSG NZ$2 million over
three years. He believed PSG was an interesting case, as the
division of NZ Post had financial issues due to its business
changing and has to cut costs.
Ackhurst was keen to point out that the Google deal didn't mean
Microsoft was out of PSG or other parts of NZ Post. "They'll
continue to use our technology on the desktop, as well as some
servers," Ackhurst said. He added NZ Post subsidiary Kiwibank
wasn't affected by the deal and remained an important reference site
for Microsoft.
An increase in mailbox size under the deal mystified Ackhurst, who said
it was a "purely admin issue". According to Ackhurst, Exchange
mailboxes were only limited by available disk space and could certainly
provide capacity in the hundreds of gigabyte range.
Conceding that Google at present had an advantage over
Microsoft, as the latter's cloud computing offerings were some 10 months away from being released, Ackhurst remains bullish that
products like the web-based version of Office and hosted Exchange
will be of higher quality and more reliable than those of the
Mountain View competitor.
He also noted that Google didn't have any data centres in New
Zealand or close by, whereas Microsoft serves the country from its
Singapore facility. Ackhurst said Microsoft was continuously
monitoring its services for issues such as availability and
latency, but wouldn't be drawn on whether the company is
considering locating datacentres closer to its New Zealand
customers.
Integrator Fronde, a New Zealand Google partner, said 2100 PSG
staff as well as a small number of NZ Post Group workers would use
Google Apps under the deal. Postini, bought by Google two
years ago, will provide spam filtering and email archiving for a
decade.
A Fronde spokesperson claimed Google Apps made it easier for PSG staff
to work more creatively, collaboratively and flexibly. He pointed to
the mailbox increase from 50MB to 25GB as one advantage of Google
Apps, saying the increased capacity freed employees from having to
constantly manage email back ups.
(Credit: Google)
Commenting on the PSG win, Google spokesperson Annie Baxter
said that Gmail opened the door into enterprises for the search
engine giant.
"Many companies start the conversation with us because of issues
with mail," Baxter says. "Maybe they're having storage issues,
maybe it's spam that's bothering them, maybe they're having trouble
scaling their existing solution, or it's becoming prohibitively
expensive as they grow."
Once Google has explained the benefits of Gmail to potential
customers, the conversation invariably turns to the rest of the
Google Apps suite, Baxter said.
The collaborative nature of products like Google Docs and
Spreadsheets has many companies really excited, according to
Baxter, as the whole way of working wasn't available to them
before. Collaboration was a key feature that really appealed to NZ
Post PSG, she claimed.
According to Baxter, data from Google Apps is stored in
multiple, secure Google sites, sometimes across a number of
countries. She said that Google has no plans for a datacentre in
New Zealand.
Ackhurst also questioned the apparent uncertainty around privacy
and legal issues for customer data being stored overseas for the
deal, claiming Microsoft would've given a clear answer straight
away.
Asked how storing data in different jurisdictions might affect
NZ Post, Baxter said that just like any law-abiding company, Google
complied with US laws and legal processes. She said that "we have
a track record of advocating on behalf of user privacy in the face
of law enforcement requests (including but not limited to US Dept
of Justice subpoenas)". Google looked at each request to be sure
it adhered to both the letter and the spirit of the law before
complying, Baxter said.