Chalk up another win for Google Apps. Fairview Cadillac, a real estate firm with 1,800 employees and a portfolio worth over $19 billion, is switching to it, and an exec has gone on the record outlining the forecast monetary savings and other benefits.
Scot Adams, SVP and CIO at Cadillac Fairview, wrote today on the Official Google Enterprise Blog, "Prior to switching to Google Apps, we had been providing IBM Lotus Notes for about $190 per user per year, plus the cost of storage. Google Apps’ simple $50 per user per year price tag was very compelling . . ."
That’s not the end of the story, though. Adams also wrote, "The initial reason we looked at Google Apps was cost savings, but the ongoing value of access to information from anywhere, totally independent of the device, is where we’re seeing the real gain."
So Fairview Cadillac’s transition represents a definite win for Google. Granted, many people would consider Microsoft a more serious competitor than IBM, but it seems reasonable to suppose that Fairview Cadillac didn’t forget about Microsoft, with its market cap of $220 billion, when considering its options.
Google’s no doubt hoping this endorsement will now push a few more companies in the direction of Google Apps. After all, what’s good enough for "one of North America’s largest investors, owners and managers of commercial real estate" should serve the needs of many other organizations.