When Gmail goes down, it doesn’t just make news, it makes people angry. Small businesses running their email on Google’s servers complain publicly. People even talk about suing Google.
Google’s response is usually along these lines: When companies manage email on their own servers, those servers routinely go down. People get upset, sure. But it doesn’t make news. And nobody starts looking for a class-action attorney.
Apparently, that attitude of Google’s isn’t just a defensive PR spin. It’s an actual strategy. Google is adding a feature to the cloud-security technology it obtained when it bought Postini in 2007. Google is calling it Message Continuity, and it’s designed to let companies have access to emails, even when a company’s servers go down.
It’s a cunning idea, for a couple of reasons. When corporate email does go down, Gmail (and Google Apps) will look like an attractive alternative. But also, the move is a direct jab at Microsoft. It sends a subtle but effective message that Google is more reliable email service than Microsoft.
But there’s a catch for Google – if a Microsoft Exchange system goes offline at the same time that Gmail has one of its occasional outages, it will look even worse for Google. Promising you’ll be there when the other guy isn’t makes it that much more important that you follow through.




- Michael Fertik is the CEO and Founder of 



