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Judging by one domain administrator's experience with Google Apps and email, Google's claims that it is not competing with Microsoft for the productivity space has a ring of truth.

Google Apps Not Ready For Prime Time

Much has been made of Google's ongoing assembly of a variety of homegrown and acquired online applications into a full-blown productivity suite. Every time a new component is announced, with PowerPoint-like presentations the latest one on Google's schedule, we all run off to write the 'Microsoft killer' story.

One person has been working with Google Apps for over six months. He has about a hundred people livening up his day with the usual user requests. Garett Rogers is not the typical domain admin; Google followers should recognize him from his Googling Google blog on ZDNet.

His observations indicate Gmail as part of Google Apps is just not ready for a business that has been using Outlook for years. Getting mail from Gmail to the desktop email client has been a path fraught with peril:

Then you have users who "don't get some mail" — this usually happens to only the most important messages. There are several probable causes for this — messages are either labeled as spam (in their Gmail interface which many business users never log into), the message sits for hours in a queue somewhere (especially handy when an urgent message is expected to arrive instantly), or they genuinely didn't receive the message (which should never EVER happen). Domain administrators hear about every message that doesn't arrive — and again, there is no way to offer a real solution or explanation to the user.

"Even if you are paying for the service, a telephone call will yield similar results — none, or at least the perception of none," Garett said in his post.

In Google's world, support questions ideally go to a message board. Our younger readers who have been weaned on things like the original Napster probably never heard of a service called CompuServe; the message board approach worked very well there back in the day when tech companies actively participated in the support forums.

Garett noted how he could go on with the complaints he has received from his users, not to mention the wellspring of unanswered questions on the Google Apps message board. Email is a big culprit. People want Outlook's features, calendaring in particular, and they don't want to use Gmail as their email client.

Google CEO Eric Schmidt has said several times that they aren't competing with Microsoft Office. It looks like people ought to start listening to the man, just as his support people should listen to Garett and other Google Apps users.