[generalk]

  > their organization name was being used in lieu of 
  > a circle when they tried to share something.

I think there are two types of Google Apps users: (1) the Large Organization and (2) the Guy Who Wants Gmail At His Domain.

(1) is okay if their users don't get the quickest rollout of new services, it's just a nice hosted email/calendar/docs solution. Users of (1) probably have personal GMail accounts they use for personal stuff, anyway.

(2) is confused whenever their [e-mail] email account doesn't act 100% like a regular GMail account.

Google has to cater to (1) because that's the whole point of Google Apps -- but that means that (2) gets slower rollouts of features that (1) might not appreciate. Perhaps if there were a different product, aimed toward the individual rather than the organization, this type of confusion could be avoided.

[adunsmoor]

I use Google apps for both (1) and (2) above (although I'm not confused when mydomain.com doesn't work like my GMail account).

In the case of (1) the biggest issue I see is when people from an organization leave. It'll be interesting to see how Google handles that in Google+ for Apps users.

As an example, right now, when deleting a Google Apps account all of the user's shared docs, calendars, emails, etc. are deleted. I'm not sure if there's a way to preserve information or transition ownership easily.

For organizations like schools I could easily envision someone wanting to take their Google+ content with them once they graduate. For companies there's usually a mix of content that should be removed and preserved that's specific to that organization.

For my personal domain I do want Google Apps features to have parity with GMail. It's not that I don't understand the difference. It's that I don't want to split my information between multiple online identities.

[generalk]

  > In the case of (1) the biggest issue I see is when people from an organization leave. 
  > [...] when deleting a Google Apps account all of the user's shared docs, 
  > calendars, emails, etc. are deleted. 

Wow, that's shocking. I've only ever used GApps for (2), but I just kind of assumed that deleting a user didn't also auto-delete their data in the organization's GApps account.

  > For my personal domain I do want Google Apps features to have parity with GMail. 
  > It's not that I don't understand the difference. It's that I don't want to split 
  > my information between multiple online identities.

Perhaps I was being overly simplistic. Presumably folks that set up their own GApps account for their domain understand that they're setting up a different kind of Google account. The disparity is always jarring, though, esp. in the case of Google Plus.

[adunsmoor]

It looks like Google has improved deleting users since the last time I had to do it. That's a relief! They've been improving Google Apps a lot in the past year.

http://www.google.com/support/a/bin/answer.py?answer=33314

"Shared documents created by the user will be deleted within five days unless ownership is reassigned. You can reassign ownership of all documents created by the user before deleting the account. If you only need to save some documents, spreadsheets, or presentations, ask the user to reassign ownership of selected documents prior to deleting the account."

Shared calendars aren't deleted. Email seems to be unless steps are taken to export the data prior to account deletion, etc. etc.

It'll be interesting to see their take on Google+ content.

[Pewpewarrows]

I never understood why those in camp (2) don't have a proper Google account not linked to Google Apps, and just forward all their mail along? That seems like the brain-dead obvious solution (and means that if you ever want to move your domain name or get rid of it a few years down the line, you always have a permanent address to fall back on).

[inam]

I forward my google account to my google apps. My main issue is that all my contacts are neatly organized in google apps and it's hard to use services like Google+ or Google Voice when they pull contacts from my gmail account.

[Pewpewarrows]

I meant the opposite. You forward your mail to the non-Google Apps account.

[nmcfarl]

For me the reason is integration: Calendar invites, Google Docs "shares", and other permissions grants don't forward, so they always end up tied to the Google Apps account. Which means using it as a primary account, gives one a better more integrated experience.

[aristidb]

You can add secondary (non-Google) e-mail addresses to a Google account, which should then all be associated with the same calendar.

[adunsmoor]

I used to forward from my Google Apps account to regular GMail but different people would see my email address from my domain and others from gmail.com depending on their mail client.

It's a minor nuisance but switching it around and routing everything to my apps account solved that inconsistency.

[pushingbits]

>> depending on their mail client

Could you elaborate on that? Does the "Send mail as" feature in gmail not work sometimes?

[adunsmoor]

It's been a while but I believe when using the "Send mail as" feature in gmail it puts your preferred address in the from: field but keeps your gmail address in the sender: field.

That's probably fine in most cases but I was getting inconsistent results when people replied to my emails. Some were addressed to my domain and others to my gmail address.

I was also concerned that this might give me a slightly higher perceived risk in some SPAM filters.

Like I said earlier, none of this was a huge deal. It was just one of those inconsistencies that led me to routing all my mail to Google Apps.

[ditojim]

i'm sure an organization wouldn't appreciate their users forwarding company emails to a personal gmail account. in almost all cases, it is probably against their policy. it would actually be a burden for the user to have their email configured the way you describe, just to get access to a couple consumer features before they are hardened for enterprises.