I'm toying with the idea of moving away from "gmail" and using my own domain for all my email needs. Having explored a few managed exchange providers, I get a feeling that Google Apps Premium version might be a better fit, mainly due to the following features that it offers

a) catchall email addresses (though it seems Exchange does allow for multiple aliases feeding to the same account).
b) 2 way sync for email/calendar/contacts between multiple devices (laptop, phone)
c) Ability to use MS Outlook almost natively, using google's activesync plugin

A few questions:

How does Google Apps Premium handle folders/labels? I'm aware of the labelling system used by GMail and I'm sure the same translates to GAppsP. if I were to create multiple folders in MS Outlook which is then sync'd to the GAppsP email backend, will the "folders" appear as "labels" in the web interface?

MS Exchange allows remote wipe for devices that it is pushing data to. (I am assuming hosted exchange providers also provide this functionality?). Does Google Apps Premium provide this feature as well?

I'd love to hear about expereinces from people who are using Google Apps Premium, and how they find the service. Also, other services they considered before chosing Google Apps / Google Apps premium.

Cheers

(worth mentioning that the usage here is more "personal" than "enterprise")

I searched and the exchange remote wipe thing seems like it is, indeed, a premium feature. Search around, there was a lot of info out there.

the mail thing is gmail. you can use regular gmail via their exchange server also. So you can play with it via the free gmail to see if it works for you. folders are labels, so it should work, but I stopped archiving mail that way a long time ago, especially with gmail, which makes it very easy to search for and find and display email threads.

-David

Personally, I put my clients on Rackspace Hosted Exchange (used to be mailtrust.com). Google may be cheaper, but Hosted Exchange does allow you to use Outlook 100% natively as well as have all the future and maybe more. Perhaps one of the biggest selling points for Rackspace specifically is their great support. It's definitely worth it unless you're on a budget.

That's how it's handled with IMAP on Google Apps non-premium (exactly like Gmail); I can't confirm that's how it's handled with the direct Outlook integration, but I'd be surprised if it weren't.

I've been using Google Apps non-premium for my personal/family accounts since it came out and have been very pleased. I don't use the Premium version (don't need any of its features - it sounds like the key for you is the Outlook integration?) but it works very nicely.