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Internet Google Announces Offline Gmail Access
Shane McGlaun (Blog) - January 28, 2009 11:51 AM
Print E-mail del.icio.us 49 comment(s) - last by phxfreddy.. on Feb 3 at 4:59 AM
Google removes one of the main stumbling blocks to its Gmail service

Many email users take advantage of the free service offered by Google called Gmail. Gmail allows users to use a Gmail email account and get their other email accounts in one place for easy access.

The biggest problem with Gmail for many users and one of the main reasons that corporations don't use Gmail instead of Microsoft Outlook is that Gmail has not offered offline access. Without offline access to email users, can’t read archived emails without having an internet connection available.

That meant that users couldn't read old emails to get directions or check meeting times when without an internet connection. Google has announced that offline access to Gmail is now available and is being rolled out for users in the U.S. and the United Kingdom.

Offline Gmail access is a product of Google Labs and will allow users to not only read and archive old emails but users will be able to compose emails that can be sent automatically the next time the computer connects to the internet. Google is able to offer the offline Gmail access by utilizing Google Gears in the browser window so users get the same layout and presentation they are used to with the online only Gmail service.

Google's Rajen Sheth said, "We wanted to, with Gears, make it a seamless experience so that users don't have to download a specialized client or go through a different experience than what they're used to with the Web browser."

One place where Outlook still has Gmail beat is offline and integrated access to the calendar. Google says that coming in the next few weeks will be offline access to the Google calendar service.

Individual users of Gmail can activate the changes in their Gmail account now, but corporate users will need their email administrator to enable the function. Gmail was updated with new graphics and themes in late 2008.

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Outlook vs. Gmail
By quiksilvr on 1/28/2009 12:23:54 PM , Rating: 2
I keep hearing more and more about Gmail starting to replace Outlook. What about you guys? You think Gmail has what it takes to take over the business market?




RE: Outlook vs. Gmail
By masher2 (blog) on 1/28/2009 12:28:39 PM , Rating: 5
Some small businesss perhaps, but no medium-large enterprise worth its salt would even consider a free solution. Zero cost equates to no contractual obligation...what if Google shut it down or degraded service in some way such as by attaching reams of ads to every mailing? You have no recourse.


RE: Outlook vs. Gmail
By Dreifort on 1/28/2009 1:06:03 PM , Rating: 5
security or privacy is the biggest issue with Gmail on a corporate level use.

also compliance issues can arise without the ability to regulate your employees email accounts from a central server (ie: ms exchange).

any company involved with financial institutions would not be allowed to use Gmail for contact with clients or transmit data internally.


RE: Outlook vs. Gmail
By drebo on 1/28/2009 1:16:06 PM , Rating: 2
In all fairness, the Google Apps meant for business use are not free and do have an uptime SLA as well as service agreement.

Google Apps has a place in the corporate world, and like you, I believe it is mostly a small business. However, I believe it's more of a cost issue that will spur its adoption rather than any kind of concerns about security or the fact that there is a "free" variant.


RE: Outlook vs. Gmail
By Souka on 1/28/2009 6:35:38 PM , Rating: 2
Don't forget that GMail is BETA!!!!


RE: Outlook vs. Gmail
By Darkskypoet on 1/28/2009 10:16:48 PM , Rating: 2
Which is why they moved to start charging in exactly the spaces you mentioned. > 50 users

Considering rolling out thin clients to the majority of workers with a non MS OS, utilizing non-MS servers, and something akin to this is a very low cost solution to a lot of the current licensing fees charged by MS. I would expect that in many (of course not all) office usage scenarios; its all that would ever be needed. (Minus the licenses per seat for 2k8 server, OS, Office, etc)


RE: Outlook vs. Gmail
By Hieyeck on 1/29/2009 9:04:40 AM , Rating: 2
If it were true.

http://www.google.com/apps/intl/en/business/detail...

It's a budget solution for sure, but not entirely without enterprise considerations.


RE: Outlook vs. Gmail
By afkrotch on 1/29/2009 9:20:22 AM , Rating: 2
WTF is with that crap list? Self-service online support, email support, phone support for critical issues. That tells me absolutely nothing.

There is not enough information on their terms. Not to mention, they are going to be allowed to read what's in your emails. Right there would cut out any medium to large business even considering using Google.


RE: Outlook vs. Gmail
By Hieyeck on 1/29/2009 9:53:04 AM , Rating: 2
Really? So beyond the link that says "Terms of Service" at the bottom (where they're usually located), along with the Side note regarding premier terms of service. You completely missed it.

And when google is in question? Really? The answer to that wasn't obvious enough? HOLD ON A MINUTE.
http://lmgtfy.com/?q=google+apps+terms+of+service&...

Troll a lil more.


RE: Outlook vs. Gmail
By borismkv on 2/3/2009 3:09:58 AM , Rating: 2
Actually, at the very least, one division of HP (Avago Technologies, a relatively prominent Semiconductor design firm, which is an offshoot of Agilent Techologies.) has switched entirely to Gmail. My brother works for them. I haven't confirmed it, but it's pretty likely that the HP offices on the same site as Avago in Fort Collins has done the same.


RE: Outlook vs. Gmail
By RobX on 1/28/2009 12:34:36 PM , Rating: 5
At my last job, the organzation used Gmail as its email system and it was a miserable experience. People were constantly losing emails, not realizing they had received new emails, and missing appointments.

At this point, Outlook has a much better design for how people actually function in an office environment.


RE: Outlook vs. Gmail
By joey2264 on 1/28/2009 1:03:34 PM , Rating: 1
I have never heard of people having those problems with Gmail. You sure the people weren't just incompetent, and were blaming Gmail? I think that is far more likely.

Regardless, you are right, regular Gmail is probably not right for businesses, for other reasons. That's why Google offers business class Gmail (and Google Calender) that you can get for a nominal fee (nominal compared to Outlook and Exchange, anyway).


RE: Outlook vs. Gmail
By Mojo the Monkey on 1/28/2009 2:18:25 PM , Rating: 4
No, i hear people complaining about this all the time. If you read what he said, he mentions that the people had, in fact, actually received the email. If you have ever started a large back-and-forth with multiple people, with the same heading, you will know the headache GMAIL creates with placement of last-in-time vs. sender vs. other senders, etc. All of them show up in the same single-line email in your inbox. When you open it, it may have 1 or 20 new emails inside, and god knows how it chooses which to display as expanded and which not. In a business setting where this is happening all the time, yes, i can see this happening.


RE: Outlook vs. Gmail
By 67STANG on 1/29/2009 1:00:19 AM , Rating: 2
Easily enough solved... I use Gmail online and offline. I've got it connected to outlook, so I can sort, organize, etc. just like a regular pop3 or exchange account. They've got a tutorial on how to do it.

GMail doesn't fly with larger businesses because of lack of control. Network admins love to have control (the feeling of power makes their paychecks seem larger). If the email system goes down or something, they like to look like a hero. If someone gets canned, they like to disable accounts in Active Directory. It's just the way of the world....


RE: Outlook vs. Gmail
By afkrotch on 1/29/2009 9:13:21 AM , Rating: 2
quote:
GMail doesn't fly with larger businesses because of lack of control. Network admins love to have control (the feeling of power makes their paychecks seem larger). If the email system goes down or something, they like to look like a hero. If someone gets canned, they like to disable accounts in Active Directory. It's just the way of the world....


It's not the network admin that likes control, it's the business itself. I'm a network admin myself. The less control I have, the less I have to work. I would love nothing more than to call someone else to fix the problem and I go back to playing flash games.

The benefit of control is knowing when you bring things down for maintenance, knowing you have a good backup solution, knowing that you can easily recover emails/email boxes, etc.

Gmail also probably doesn't make copies of the same email and instead uses one email pretty much sends a link to that email. This means users cannot make changes to attachments within the email and save it. You use a lot of storage, but it's worth it for a business.

You can limit what types of emails, attachments, etc come in and out. Also what size the email is. What about group emails? Shared calendars?


RE: Outlook vs. Gmail
By 67STANG on 1/29/2009 11:01:49 AM , Rating: 2
I understand there are certain parts of control that are necessary. However, Gmail basically works like an IMAP account, which does keep the copy of email on the server. If you use Gmail with outlook then it functions just like an Exchange Server / Outlook Client scenario. Gmail has implemented shared calendars, documents etc. As you know, if you have an automated utility to backup PST's from a client's Outlook, you have your backup.

Gmail doesn't allow for custom SPAM rules or attachment restriction control.


RE: Outlook vs. Gmail
By Fireshade on 1/29/2009 10:48:00 AM , Rating: 2
quote:
Network admins love to have control (the feeling of power makes their paychecks seem larger). If the email system goes down or something, they like to look like a hero.

In my experience it is totally different.
System and network admin jobs are among the most thankless jobs there are. If everything is working, users consider that normal. Fair enough. If something goes down, users complain and complain. Sometimes admins get the blame, even though it's not their fault. If the admins fix it, not even a word of appreciation.

P.S. I'm not an admin (thank god!), this is just my observation.


RE: Outlook vs. Gmail
By Alexstarfire on 1/29/2009 8:43:18 AM , Rating: 3
I actually know what you are referring to even though I'm never worked in a corporate environment. I can say that I have no idea how many replies you are talking about in such an email, but the ones I've had between family and friends get long enough. I would still say it's because people are incompetent. I can't believe people have gotten so lazy that they actually need a program to tell them EXACTLY what's new so they can just skip over EVERYTHING else. In emails as you've described I've never had problems figuring out what is new and what is old, but, as I said before, mine may not be nearly as big as a corporate one.


RE: Outlook vs. Gmail
By PrezWeezy on 1/30/2009 7:01:03 PM , Rating: 2
I don't think the math works out real well on that. With SBS 2003 (which cost about $500) you got way more functionality, along with Exchange and Outlook. For a 5 user company you make that price up in 2 years. That's assuming you use a server to begin with. I'd also guess that most people are going to use MS Word and Excel instead of google apps from a convenience standpoint, so they have outlook already with their office suite.

Just looking at the way this all works out, I'm going to say that using MS is just as cheap, and you get a whole lot more control and richer features for the same price.


RE: Outlook vs. Gmail
By Meinolf on 1/28/2009 2:15:46 PM , Rating: 2
We still Lotus Notes at are company, Yah I know Frickin Lotus Notes!


RE: Outlook vs. Gmail
By Yawgm0th on 1/28/2009 3:48:07 PM , Rating: 3
Actually, Lotus Notes has huge market penetration to this day. Working in IT the last few years and searching for jobs, I have seen lots that ask for Lotus Notes experience.


RE: Outlook vs. Gmail
By IcePickFreak on 1/28/2009 5:25:31 PM , Rating: 2
I feel your pain brother. When I started my job a bit over 3 years ago, they used Outlook. A few months later they actually switched over to Lotus Notes as it was the standard for the new company/owner that took over between my interviewing and actual start date. Talk about a step backwards.

It's simple, for an email program I want a program that gives me access to my email 99.999% of the time. Not a program that tacks on a load of other crap that work's about 20% of the time, including you know.. actual emails.


RE: Outlook vs. Gmail
By RU482 on 1/28/2009 11:03:47 PM , Rating: 2
Lotus Notes...Hmm, do you work for Rockwell Collins??


RE: Outlook vs. Gmail
By Jedi2155 on 1/29/2009 12:30:17 AM , Rating: 2
Lotus Notes 6.5 at my company...its absolutely horrid. Thunderbird is my favorite, but definitely prefer Outlook over Lotus notes!


RE: Outlook vs. Gmail
By amandahugnkiss on 1/28/2009 2:47:57 PM , Rating: 2
nope, still beta. It's not going on most corpnets unless they drink a lot of googleaid. As for their business line of supported apps, they're working on them but just aren't there yet.


RE: Outlook vs. Gmail
By deeznuts on 1/28/2009 4:21:14 PM , Rating: 2
I operate a single member law firm. It's just me, so gmail works perfectly. I bought a domain at godaddy, pointed at google apps, now I have free email I can access anywhere really.

I can also IMAP it to outlook if I wanted, I think. But I just use the web.

When you boil it down, how different is Google to say appriver or other outsourced email systems, for smaller businesses? If I had more than a few employees I'd opt for the paid google app platform, but nope, just me.


RE: Outlook vs. Gmail
By phxfreddy on 2/3/2009 4:59:11 AM , Rating: 2
The MAIN PROBLEM: Google "reads" your emails. This is not good for business. It only suits a plain vanilla person who does nothing other than play video games and watch tv. You can not have sensitive business information in such an environment.


security?
By Dreifort on 1/28/2009 12:23:00 PM , Rating: 2
With Outlook, the offline access mostly refers to an Exchange Server that has been implemented on-site for the corporation/business.

Does G-mail offer consumer server side email software and configuration? (some companies still have inter-office communication by electronic mail platforms that never get access outside the internal network.)




RE: security?
By TomZ on 1/28/2009 12:51:57 PM , Rating: 2
quote:
With Outlook, the offline access mostly refers to an Exchange Server that has been implemented on-site for the corporation/business.
Even without Exchange, Outlook has offline access. For example, Outlook downloads your POP3 e-mail, then you go off the 'net. Your e-mails are still there, right?


RE: security?
By Dreifort on 1/28/2009 1:01:59 PM , Rating: 2
Most "corporatoins" as the article refers to, don't use POP3.

POP3 can't be regulated or monitored as easily as it can with an Exchange Server setup.


RE: security?
By TomZ on 1/28/2009 2:40:23 PM , Rating: 2
I don't see where the article states that this offering is targeting companies. And besides, most small businesses that don't have an Exchange server are using POP3 with Outlook or some other e-mail client.


RE: security?
By Dreifort on 1/28/2009 3:23:00 PM , Rating: 2
quote:
The biggest problem with Gmail for many users and one of the main reasons that corporations don't use Gmail instead of Microsoft Outlook is that Gmail has not offered offline access.


They mentioned corporatoins, which to me is not small businesses.


RE: security?
By deeznuts on 1/28/2009 4:18:38 PM , Rating: 2
They do have single member corporations now ;)

Lots of small businesses are corps/llc as well. 2 members, 10, etc.


RE: security?
By 4wardtristan on 2/2/2009 5:40:58 PM , Rating: 2
you can use pop email with exchange

its called the pop connector.

but yes, you are right in the sense that alot of medium/large enterprise dont exactly pop their mail down

but a large number of small business use 2003/2008 SBS, primarily for exchange, and only pop their mail...


RE: security?
By Screwballl on 1/28/2009 12:57:37 PM , Rating: 2
I have used POP3 access to get and archive Gmail before... pop.gmail.com, enable SSL which sets incoming port at 995. As for outgoing, that is based on your ISP, I do not know of any SMTP access settings for gmail. Maybe smtp.gmail.com, port 587?


Outlook AND Gmail
By wphamilton on 1/28/2009 12:59:51 PM , Rating: 1
Since you can use gmail's POP capability and configure Outlook for the gmail account it makes no sense at all to talk about outlook vs gmail. Nor is it true that Gmail has not offered off-line access - that's what POP is. For that matter you could set up IMAP access if you want, which also works just fine with Outlook or any other mainstream client.

I think Google must be promoting an email client they're rolling out, Shane, and not talking about the gmail service itself.




RE: Outlook AND Gmail
By drebo on 1/28/2009 1:37:23 PM , Rating: 2
The point of this feature is that you do not need to use an email client. This feature embeds itself in your web browser and gives you a GMAIL interface even when offline. You don't need to configure a third-party application and use POP or IMAP.


RE: Outlook AND Gmail
By wphamilton on 1/28/2009 3:43:59 PM , Rating: 2
That's what I said - google is promoting a rollout of their own email client (an addin on the web browser is an email client).

The real question is "why?" Who is the target demographic for enhancing the webmail, and why would they want it, when you already have the functionality with any standard email client? Obviously not the business user let alone corporations as suggested in the article. It can only be the register-and-go user, perhaps the person who used Google Checkout and got a gmail account on the fly. While I'm sure it's a cool feature to locally archive the webmail, it doesn't really have much point beyond that.


This is not new
By seatech1 on 1/28/2009 1:42:20 PM , Rating: 2
I've been using my Gmail account offline for over a year now. It downloads to my Outlook Express as a POP account, and I can send mail using SMTP through Gmail. So, I don't get why they are saying this is new. This article is completely wrong.




RE: This is not new
By TomZ on 1/28/2009 2:42:40 PM , Rating: 2
Google is giving you the same gmail.com interface while offline, that's all. In other words, the browser is enhanced to store a local cache of your e-mail.


I've been using offline gmail for years though?
By wired00 on 2/2/2009 10:46:07 PM , Rating: 2
I don't get this... i've been offline downloading my gmail errr email into thunderbird (etc) for years now... why is this suddenly advertised as a great new feature?




By wired00 on 2/2/2009 10:51:01 PM , Rating: 2
ok well ignore this, seems heaps of people mention the very same thing O.O

guess they are just allowing a gmail.com style interface while offline...which is stupid i'd far prefer using a "proper" email client like thunderbird anyway


Outlook compared to Gmail?
By eman7613 on 1/28/2009 2:40:13 PM , Rating: 1
This is inane, outlook and gmail are apples and oranges.
outlook vs Thunderbird vs evolution vs iMail = fair game
gmail vs hotmail vs yahoo - fair game, same things.

ive used gmail offline for a year now through Thunderbird and outlook, you can set up gmail for anything you want that supports imap or pop.




RE: Outlook compared to Gmail?
By Techiedude37 on 1/29/2009 11:18:19 AM , Rating: 2
Yeah I don't understand the comparison between a free email program (Gmail) and an email reader (Outlook). The comparison should really be between Gmail and Exchange which there really isn't any.


Use IMAP!
By DimWit321 on 1/28/2009 1:59:45 PM , Rating: 2
I have been using Thunderbird to access gmail via the IMAP protocol since gmail supported IMAP. It works very well and with IMAP there is the option for DOWNLOAD MESSAGES for off-line access. So problem already solved.




I switched over to Google's IMAP and
By bupkus on 1/28/2009 2:42:30 PM , Rating: 2
...and I found out that Outlook has a setting to download not only the headers, but the body of emails in specified folder/labels.
I find great comfort in these features as it allows me to travel to my girlfriend's house (out of state) and back home and still have a full history of purchases on my website as my website emails me of all site activities.
Yes, that still means I am using Outlook, but I was using Thunderbird until I found I wasn't getting a persistent download of email bodies to TB. I know now that there may be a setting on TB to download email bodies, but I haven't verified that now that I'm already using Outlook.
Anyone else out there using TB with IMAP and adjusting for offline access?

Other thoughts: I find Google's IMAP produces folder synch errors and can be slow and Outlook 2007 can hang. BTW, I don't synch all the folders as recommended in Google's IMAP help.




Issue in ie6.0 & Firefox.
By raviparams on 1/28/09, Rating: -1
RE: Issue in ie6.0 & Firefox.
By Screwballl on 1/28/2009 1:18:18 PM , Rating: 2
I use Firefox and have changed my Gmail theme... and if it doesn't work with IE6 then it is time to update it to IE7.

People still using IE6 are usually so far behind the curve anyways that they wouldn't have any use for themes or extra services, or would not know how to use them. These are usually people still using dialup and/or Windows 98 (or unpatched XP).


RE: Issue in ie6.0 & Firefox.
By mindless1 on 1/31/2009 7:37:36 PM , Rating: 2
Actually, a lot of businesses didn't upgrade to IE7 so their employees still use IE6.

Personally, I never did (upgrade), I switched to Firefox then in the rare case Firefox won't do something (website coded for IE's rendering mistakes) I might still fire up IE6, on a fully patched (besides IE7) XP install.


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