Looking for admin help to set up Google Apps from exchange/BES for my small bizn

[ajfitzer]

I saw the posts on here, and wanted to see if anyone can lend me a hand. I have my own recruitment practice, and have been in business for about 7 years now. I have gone from pop3, to exchange hosted, to my current setup exchange hosted with BES. I pay about $30/month for 2 users and the BES.

Like so many others, I am looking to cutback on certain costs. I was able to reduce my web hosting cost by about 1/2 this month, but have been looking for a better e-mail option. The other evening I was watching my wife on her laptop, and caught a glimpse of google apps. Her school recently moved the whole district onto google apps. The e-mail setup looked solid, as did the calendar sync. The more I have been reading, the more I realize I am paying for more than I will ever use, and perhaps google aps would be a solid option for me.

I want to set up google apps professional for my business with 2 users, postini filtering service, using outlook, and synching it all with my Blackberry. Even though I am relatively technical, as I have no IT person, this seems beyond what I am comfortable doing myself (changing DNS records, trying not to lose any of my current e-mails, tweeking my blackberry settings, etc). I was hoping someone could help me, walk with me through this process. Google has great documentation, but I work better when I have a little first hand guidance. I would certainly be willing to compensate for someones time. If your interested in helping, I could really use it and look forward to hearing from you.

Best Regards,
Adam

[Slashdpc]

Hi Adam,

I can help you with this. Shoot me an email at slashdpc at gmail dot com with any questions you might have.

/Dan

[ajfitzer]

Thanks Dan. However, I was able to set up Google Apps Sync with some help, spent 2 hours on the phone with RIM as my IMAP settings were not completely correct, and had to totally upgrade my OS on my Blackberry as well. After some time and effort however, I was able to get PUSH EMAIL synch between my Blackberry and my Desktop Outlook, using Google Apps Synch on Desktop, and using the Gmail plug in on my Blackberry. I am still waiting for my 2nd user account to work however, as I had some issues with the synch as I had originally set it up for the wrong e-mail account. Google makes me wait 5 days for that to correct. Otherwise, it works like a charm.

On a side note, the RIM folks mentioned to me that the delay on the synching from the desktop to the Blackberry has to do with them making NEW e-mails a priority versus updating old ones. This means that when I delete an e-mail on my desktop, it takes a bit for it to delete on my blackberry. However, when I delete an e-mail on my blackberry, it deletes on my desktop within seconds! I was told their is a big push at RIM right now to resolve this time lag, by making the older e-mails more of a priority. This could be resolved over the next few months. I will say the gmail plug in rocks too. I get a ton of spam even with postini filtering, so having the REPORT SPAM feature on my blackberry is really handy.

Fitz