If you are seriously claiming that Exchange and Google Apps provide the same features except for the most basic, one-sentence description of those features (as in, 'they both send mail and store contacts'), you clearly don't have the slightest idea of what Exchange is or does.

Regarding the BI, I think you're mistaking me for another person in this thread, I don't know much about that, nor do I have an opinion. I'm just saying that Exchange is unique and there is nothing out there that can replace it without making very different trade-offs in the way your IT infrastructure is set up.

You have obviously never used Google Apps Premium edition. It does the bits that actually matter to users. I havent looked after Exchange since the 2007 version but am well aware what it can do.

Part of the "charm" of corporate IT is that what matters to the users isn't even part of the equation.

Do Google apps allow you to have your own server completely cut off from Google? (cos no way would the company I am in want to let google see their mail)

No you dont host the Google Apps product locally - thats the whole point of it.

Yeah, that's going to be a dealbreaker for a lot of businesses. Some of them actually take confidentiality of their own and clients' data somewhat seriously. And for good reasons, too. Besides, you're not just trusting Google with your internal communications and sensitive customer data, but it's also an American corporation that's been known to willingly share data with government agencies. If you're not based in the US yourself, why place such trust? To illustrate, imagine there's a service like "Yandex Apps" (maybe there even is, I don't know), of course some businesses would not care as long as the product is good, but you can also imagine there'd be many that would be rather hesitant to host their sensitive business data on a Russian webserver on a different continent... :)

Yes, Americas National Security Letters and lawful interception laws are sparking a lot of concern over this.