Google Apps Sync for Outlook Syncs Outlook with Google Apps

Good -- no, great -- news for Google Apps users: Google Apps Sync for Microsoft Outlook enables Outlook users to synchronize their e-mail, contacts, and calendars with (you guessed it) Google Apps. That means it has the potential to replace pricey Exchange in your cash-strapped organization.

There's more to tell, but why not watch this informative video first:

Not too shabby, eh? To recap, Google Apps Sync's key features include:

• E-mail, calendar, and contacts synchronization. For e-mail, the plug-in uses the offline Gmail protocol, which Google says is much faster than IMAP or other methods.
• Free/Busy lookup and Global Address List functionality, which makes it easy to schedule meetings with your colleagues, regardless of whether they use Outlook's calendar or Google Calendar.
• A simple, two-click data migration tool that allows employees to easily copy existing data from Exchange or Outlook into Google Apps.

Non-enterprise users can deploy Google Calendar Sync to keep Outlook and GCal in tune and gSyncit for contact syncing. As for e-mail, look no further than Gmail IMAP if you want seamless integration between Gmail and Outlook. [via Official Google Enterprise Blog]