I have included a few links for your review based on your questions.

Google Apps SLA
http://www.google.com/apps/intl/en/terms/sla.html

Google Apps Security and Privacy
http://www.google.com/support/a/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=60762

Your question around ownership of your organizations data is answered in the question on this link titled “Who owns the data that organizations place in Google Apps”

Handing off control of your organizations collaborative data does require new expectations in the area of what responsibilities Google would handle and in turn what your organization would continue to maintain ownership of. In my opinion, like most any outsourced service, account management would still be required from your organization. Regardless of your geographic location, Google and/or a partner like ourselves would work with you to ensure a seamless transition and happy cloud experience was the net result.

All feedback? Or just the feedback you made publicly viewable?

You can look at it free. It is nice but I am not overly impressed when you compare features.

Mail, Chat, Calendar, Docs appear to be the same as the free versions. Calendar is pretty basic. For example no OOO that I could see, just create an event called OOO. Which is ok if you are only using OOO for calendar.

Video upload is very slow compared to the rest of the site.

Sites is not that intuitive compared to the other features. I am sure they will improve with time (reminded me of a very basic version of portal).

Mobile appears to just to link to google mobile free area.

I think if you only require very basic features in your company then google apps might be one to look at. But I don’t see this being a Notes/Domino killer anytime soon (or an exchange killer for that matter).

Can you tell me what SLA’s google gives?
What happens if you have an issue with some of your files – is there somebody you can contact? Whats the response on that?
Can you take backups of files you might need long term?

If a company is handing over control of it’s data to another party then surely they would expect support desks, account managers etc to manage this? Where would they be based? (we’re in the UK)

I can’t see where google has these. Maybe you could enlighten me?

Yes, it is, that is why there are many hosting providers that support Notes and Domino, to take advantage of economies of scale and pass on the savings to the customer. You don’t have to be as big as Google to do that either. Many of us provide migration service for under 1000 users too.

As Ed mentioned, running a Foundations server is very cost effective and minimal IT experience is required.

BTW, all computers bootstrap themselves at run time. Google didn’t invent that.

“With such a useful and fast development tool, many organizations find themselves left with a myriad of Lotus Notes applications that, while a good idea in the beginning, lack the careful life cycle approach to application development and data management.”

So because a company can’t manage their own development work they should do it all in a cloud? This will magically make these into “… more complex CRM and/or ERP applications.” This one is a real stretch as I haven’t seen a Google branded CRM or ERP app.

“Deployment of all users on this single platform provides an unprecedented level of feedback for the evolution and refinement of Apps on a daily basis.”

What?

None of your points makes a clear statement that Google is the only way to do apps or that it is better than using Lotus Notes/Domino. More than 100 Million clients use ND today and none of your”pain points” simply go away because Google is running the show.

“mail box size limits, message labeling, and a powerful search functionality”

All o fthese are available in Notes today and for a long time now, including the use of Google’s own search in the mail box and Notes apps, which I use daily.

Tell me how Google wil handle vacation requests? Multiple emails? Maybe the end user will need to read 120 FAQ responses before they find out, it’s not available. I am not a developer and I can build a simple, effective vacation request database with workflow in about 1 day. Even less if I download one of several from http://www.openntf.org

As far as I know, Google apps = mail, calendar, chat, poor mobile (as compared to BES), docs, blogs and video posting. The last 3 are questionable “enterprise” apps outside of the corp firewall anyway and are free on a miriad of sites if they are allowed by corp security.

That’s the missing link in Google apps. Security. Or the lack thereof.

My $0.02

–Pete

Jeff, didn’t you migrate that company (which I don’t think is Fortune 100 anymore) to Microsoft Exchange Online?

“forgo your moral obligations and chase innovation?”
Moral obligations??? I think most Domino admins and developers are making decisions based on what’s the right model for their businesses, not based on some bizarre moral obligation.

“Furthermore, the purchase price is a massive $162/user (yes, this includes the software license for the client).”
This is the maximum list price including a full license for Lotus Notes. For most organizations, either they’ll have Notes license or they otherwise will realize a lower price than the published list. We’ll also certainly work with companies less than 1000 users — either with LotusLive, or with great offerings like Lotus Foundations. It may be an on-premise box, but it’s self-managing and essentially a private cloud approach.

“all powered by an almost infinitely scalable, cloud-based infrastructure that requires zero administrative management or maintenance.”
Wow, you’ve figured out a way for the cloud to automagically handle help desk calls, manage the user directory, monitor bandwidth and security, handle desktop browser-related issues, manage compliance requests, and conduct training? Impressive!!!