The CBC is Canada's public broadcaster and offers an array of TV, radio , internet and mobile device oriented content in English, French and 8 aboriginal languages.

Like most private companies, they are constantly trying to stretch every dollar and deliver the best bang for every buck. They evaluated the 2 major offerings :

• Google Apps
• Microsoft 365

They wanted an easy to deploy solution that offered flexible pricing, real-time collaboration and excellent availability guarantees.

Once the decision was made to go with Google, the CBC leveraged the migration expertise of a Google Apps partner to transition its entire staff within 90 days. During deployment, they realized that many of their employees were already using Google's GMAIL service for their personal communications so training was minimal.

It was interesting to read how moving to Google Apps also changed their corporate communication culture. Instead of discussing issues via conference call (which is more impersonal and costly), their employees started to use the video chat features of Google Hangouts (which is accessible from anywhere and from almost any device).

The CBC also liked the real-time communication features of Google Docs that are built into the product. A globally distributed team can collaborate on a single version of each document making the process simpler and more efficient.

The rivals (Microsoft and Google) are really turning up the heat and competition is becoming fierce. More competition means consumers win with better pricing, more highly refined features and companies thinking about improving the user experience.