I'm pulling together some content for a workshop that I'm going to be running at the second European Google Atmosphere event that's taking place in a couple of weeks time at an impressive Chateau just outside Chantilly in France. When I spoke at the London CIO event in the early summer, we had just about completed our first phase of migration, and we were planning how to approach the gradual deployment of Google Docs and Sites across the business.
At the end of the summer we now have about 120 people using Docs to various extents in the business (about a third of our permanent workforce), and we are starting to see people getting to grips with it and finding ways to make their own working practices more effective as a result. It's the first green shoots, and whilst nothing earth shattering, there is much more to come I am sure.
The presentation is focused on developing a business case for a move to a Cloud-based service, and has got me thinking about what a business case should look like (and what our own was like). It also comes after seeing reports like this one on CIO.com, and having conversations with CIOs contemplating a move to Google driven by the potential cost savings.
I'm of very strong opinion here: if you drive a project to move to a service like Google Apps (or Microsoft BPOS, or whatever else) on grounds of cost saving alone, whilst you probably will save some money, the project will fail.
Why? Well, because if you start from a premise that you just want to save money, what's in it for the business, or the people using the tools? A sense that their core tools for communication aren't so valuable and, maybe by proxy, they aren't worth very much.
The CIO.com article talks about four reasons why existing Google Apps clients are looking to move away. Three of the four reasons are directly as a result of a cost-saving driven approach (the final one, because of Google's slightly gung-ho approach to release management is the one that I can relate to…).
Drive a project with good, positive business objectives (ours were to improve relationships with our clients, improve engagement across the business, and to get value for both the company and our clients), and cost savings may well fall out. Drive on a simplistic measure alone, and you might not get what you bargained for…
mmitII 
Well said. We often say that saving costs won't get you good IT, but good IT can save you $. My goal in moving stuff to the cloud was never cost savings, but adding new value to the business. We ended up saving $, but that was not the focus of the projects.