Does Google really make its employees depend on Gmail and Gcal?

You have NO IDEA. In many ways they are the Googler life

Yes, they do. But that shouldn't be surprising.

Well, I mean I know they are Google and all- but I can't imagine Gmail and Gcal supporting a corporate user very effectively. I use it for my personal stuff, but I am extremely appreciative of Exchange at work.

Calendar seems to have a similar featureset to that of Outlook. You can put appointments on other people's calendars and you can schedule rooms, anyway. And, at Google, the conference rooms have motion sensors that allow the room reservation system to "garbage collect" unused rooms. (You also get an LED indication of whether or not you'll be running into someone else's time if your meeting runs late. Gotta love the hardware support!)

Who makes these devices?

Googlers?

Edit: maybe that? http://code.google.com/p/radishdisplay/

Actually that's the code for an older 20% project:

http://code.google.com/apis/gdata/articles/radish.html

It's called VCGC.

I've worked at a company that had these deployed. They were actually quite nice. In the rare event they failed, it was quickly resolved as everyone could see the LED that would turn to green/red/yellow that people nicknamed "the worm". http://www.steelcase.com/en/products/category/integrated/col...

Can you expand on why?

* Update: Specifically for you, rather than in the wider sense; how does Exchange make /your/ life easier?

Directory searching, hotkeys for everything, Calendar is more powerful AND easier to use. Searching email is faster, managing hundreds of messages easier, and the interface, snappier.

Offline is a smoother experience requiring no effort. Reminders for the Calendar actually manage to get my attention.

Rules are easier to manage, and if memory serves much more flexible.

I am not criticizing Gmail et al mind you; as I mentioned, I use them all the time. They just are more useful for personal, low-volume stuff.

Works pretty well, actually. Calendar isn't perfect, but I personally prefer the UI to exchange.

I enjoy Calendar, and my company uses their own but provides a link so that I can have it automatically imported to my Google Calendar. So my work, family, and personal calendar are all on one happy color coded page, and on my phone a simple widget.

To add another thought- it is not surprising, but it also is. I've gotten the impression Google is pretty good about avoiding NIH syndrome, and use the best tool for the job. Sometimes there is no such tool and they build one, or sometimes the best tool isn't good enough so they extend it, but...

> It strikes me as accurate. Google apps is better for mail, and Microsoft is the cats ass when it comes to calendaring. If you are the secretary who must schedule 20 execs for a meeting the first Wednesday of every month, then there is nothing better than Outlook/Exchange.

Really? A bunch of things about Outlook calendering drives me up the wall. I can't find a way to tell it that I've attended an event just dismissing the late notice. Also just the other day it prompted me with a late notice about a cancelled weekly meeting.

> Also just the other day it prompted me with a late notice about a cancelled weekly meeting.

Isn't that just user error (failure by someone to send out a cancellation notice)?

Pretty well known ux flaw, when someone forwards you a meeting in outlook, then cancels it, none of the forwarded attendees receive notice.

Another fun fact is that when you forward someone a meeting and add a snide comment to it, your snide comment gets sent to the organizer. I always wondered why people stopped liking me suddenly, then I realized that my private commentary about stupid meetings wasn't actually private.