Web 2.0 Google Apps etc

Hi

I attended a web ex meeting (online meeting with dial in) yesterday about google apps.

It has got me thinking about that which Steve Bailey shared with us at conference.
At the web ex we were considering whether or not our organisation would move to hosted facilites.

The consensus at the meeting about the use of products such as Google apps was yes, but only when Google had addressed issues around business continuity, security, compliance, reliability etc.

However, at Leicestershire County Counicl we are already dipping our toe in. We are now actively developing the use of google maps and integrating with existing solutions, instead of an intenral mapping solution, we are moving to google maps,principally due to speed and update issues.

But is this only the start?

Lets face it, their solutions for business already includes, amongst other elements:-

Gmail
Google docs, including spreadsheets and presentations
Calendar
Google Talk
Google Sites
Extensibility API's

I have to say that if they develop good rm practices within their hosted solutions, it may only be a matter of time before we take the leap, using Google or whatever else appears on the web 2.0 horizon.

In any case I have created a google apps environment and will be doing some rudimentary testing, has anyone else created a google apps account?