If I had a 5-30 person office, I would jump on Google Apps in an instant, particularly if I didn’t already have an imap server and all the other hardware and software jazz Microsoft likes to sell you so Outlook will actually work.

Here’s why:

1. You will never run out of space on your email account: Every email account comes with 2+ gigs of storage.
2. You can easily add and remove email addresses from a web-based panel (no more calling the tech guy for basic tasks).
3. Your employees can access their email from anywhere and on any operating system (the Mac guy can keep his Mac!).
4. You get my new favorite Calendar system – it’s really easy to add events, invite others, and manage multiple calendars including group calendars (we use group Calendars for the very infrequent events that we must all attend at ShackPrices). Also, you can access your calendars from other people’s computers.
5. Your employees get all the nice little touches that are quickly being added to Gmail – the ability to preview word documents, excel spreadsheets, and pdfs without opening up a new program, in-browser chatting with other gmail users, and the ability to send voice mails (to anyone!) from Google Talk.

You can already download all your email from gmail to any email program and Google will be offering an API, so you can hire a programmer (or download plug-ins) to access all the rest of your information should you ever decide to quit.

Via John Battelle’s Search Blog (a great blog if you haven’t checked it out)