Savings windfall for firm that moved from Microsoft Outlook to Gmail

Taylor Woodrow, a UK-based construction company, has switched its 1,800 employees' e-mail from Microsoft Outlook to enterprise Gmail.

The company is also beginning to use other components of Google Apps, the suite of Web-based applications that includes, in addition to Gmail, calendar, chat, word processing, spreadsheets and wikis.

According to Rob Ramsay, Taylor Woodrow's IT director, the company has already realized a cost savings of nearly $2 million in licensing and support costs.

According to Google, Google Apps premier edition for enterprises costs $50 per user per year. In an interview with CIO, Ramsay cited four major lessons from implementing the enterprise version of Gmail and dabbling with Google Apps