Gmail to Provide Backup for Microsoft Exchange Users

Just as Microsoft's Bing has made the search environment a little too crowded for Google's tastes, Google is doing the same thing to Microsoft with office productivity tools.

Thursday's launch of Google Message Continuity reiterates a message that Google has been trying to send to businesses and IT managers for a few years now. That message being that Gmail is a reliable and valuable cloud-based alternative business email solution if your company's on-premises email system such as Microsoft Exchange should ever fail.

Google Message Continuity is a cloud-based service that helps ensure that businesses will always have access to their email. It works by replicating email accounts hosted on Microsoft Exchange servers in the cloud, using Gmail, Calendar and Contacts. If the Microsoft Exchange server fails or requires scheduled maintenance or downtime, all users have to do is log into Gmail and continue regular, up-to-date email communications through Google.

Since Gmail and Microsoft Exchange are constantly synchronized with each other, employees can seamlessly switch from one email environment to the other.

The new service is one result of Google's 2007 acquisition of Web-based communications provider Postini, and more information can be found on Google's Postini Web page.