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Moran & BewleyÂ’s Hotels chooses Google Apps Premier Edition deployed by Ancoris for cost-effective email

Moran & Bewley’s Hotels chooses Google Apps Premier Edition deployed by Ancoris for cost-effective email

 

Independent luxury hotel group Moran & Bewley’s Hotels is to transition 200 email users to Google Apps Premier Edition, provided by cloud computing specialists Ancoris. The move comes as Moran Hotels consolidates its systems following the acquisition of Bewley’s Hotels in March 2008.

 

Google Apps Premier Edition replaces the Alt-N MDaemon email server run by Bewley’s Hotels, and was chosen in preference to transferring accounts to the Microsoft Exchange 2003 server in place at Moran Hotels.

 

Enhancing staff collaboration

 

In addition to making use of Gmail with its integrated instant messenger (known as Google Talk), employees will have access to Google Calendar, which will allow them to share their calendars with others to enable them to efficiently co-ordinate schedules, as well as organise events and meetings.

 

A further 100 to 150 users are likely to be transferred from Exchange to Google Apps Premier Edition if the initial roll out proves successful, and the hotel group intends to investigate making use of other features of Google Apps Premier Edition over the longer term as a replacement for Microsoft-based technologies.

 

Leonardus Russouw, Moran & Bewley’s Hotels’ head of IT, said the hotel group chose Google Apps Premier Edition primarily on cost grounds: "There’s simply no comparison between the cost of using Google Apps and switching the user accounts from MDaemon to Exchange, both in terms of user licences and ongoing maintenance effort," he explained.

 

Other factors influencing Moran & Bewley’s Hotel’s choice were the low management overhead of the cloud computing solution from Ancoris, and the generous mailbox storage offered by Google Apps Premier Edition, which will eliminate the need for mail archiving. "Limits on the size of our Exchange mailboxes means I have to spend considerable time archiving old mails. With Google Apps Premier Edition providing 25GB of mail storage per user, archiving is no longer a concern," Russouw added.

 

Saving IT management overheads

 

"In addition, although Exchange works fairly well, it takes a lot of time and effort to manage and maintain it. With email provided through a cloud computing solution from Ancoris, I no longer need to spend my time managing mail servers. At the end of the day, it’s a worry free solution."

 

Ancoris was chosen to supply Google Apps Premier Edition to Moran & Bewley’s Hotels on the basis of a successful pre-existing relationship supplying the Google Message Discovery (formerly Postini) for use with Moran & Bewley’s Hotels’ Exchange server. "We've always experienced very reliable service for Google Message Discovery: as regards to uptime, we’ve never been let down by it," Russouw said. "We’re confident that email as part of Google Apps Premier Edition will be equally reliable."

 

He added: "With Ancoris, you also get very knowledgeable people and excellent service. Any time we’ve had any kind of issue, or been looking to do something new, the response from Ancoris has been very quick and professional. There’s always been someone at the other end of the line who knows what they’re talking about, and who’s willing to take the time to discuss our needs with us."

 

David McLeman, managing director of Ancoris, said: "For companies like Moran & Bewley’s Hotels, Google Apps Premier Edition represents a very cost-effective way for IT teams to deliver highly reliable, high-quality IT solutions to users based across multiple locations. We're seeing massive demand in for cloud computing in the hospitality sector, where organisations want to achieve more for less."