Feel like I'm feeding a troll, but johnjones's ID is so low that I feel this silliness may be taken seriously:

Same way you would do any remote hosted email migration. POP and IMAP. Additional tools are provided for Google Apps (their for-pay version).

Umm, an hour of downtime doesn't mean your data is gone. I'll also echo earlier comments -- locally hosted email generally has more problems, as no company but the largest enterprise has the same magnitude of IT equipment and experience as Google.

I've never really understood why so many Slashdotters have this attitude about hosted services. Perhaps they are local IT folks for smaller companies, and fear for their jobs?

No, this is FUD.

Silverlight currently runs on the VAST MAJORITY (read 98%+ of non-mobile) of machines today: Windows and OS X.

Anti-MS zealotry on /. is getting a bit nuts: this really isn't a bad platform. It's logic/pres separation is light years ahead of Flash, and as it has .Net underneath it's a much more of pleasure to program with than ActionScript.

Yes, it is vendor 'lock-in'. Sort of (see Moonlight). BUT IT IS NO WORSE THAN ANY OF THE ALTERNATIVES INCLUDING FLASH/FLEX/AIR AND JAVA/JAVAFX!! Please see through the bullshit and realize that the only thing that really sucks about this product is the company that made it.

I always figured the reason we don't have a world government is history -- that is, that's just the way we got here. It's not because we put a system in place that pits ideas against each other -- it just sort of turned out that way.

To be perfectly honest, I've never understood the whole States' rights thing. I mean, I understand what it means, and how it is supposed to work. But it seems really archaic today:

With modern communication, Americans are Americans. Sure, I may identify as an Austinite and Texan as well, but I'm an American first. I assume most other citizens feel this way too. What's the point of having separate codes of law for all 50 states? So we can have different ideas competing capitalist-style? That may make sense for programs and initiatives, but not laws.

I know there's a lot of anti-federalism here on Slashdot. I've also noticed that (in my experience) it's usually older or say 'more socially conservative' folks who are ardent States' rights people. Not trying to be a douche, but really just wondering: why do you not want to just fix the problems on a federal level? Why all this clamour to do things locally?

Too dangerous. Best to strike a balance, and fix it like capitalism.

Assign a heavy cost on secrecy. First, all documents tagged secret must have a responsible party's name attached. All documents marked this way are reviewed every few years by an independent oversight group (congress, press, industry, whatever). Accidental errors and omissions carry a monetary penalty to the responsible party. Malicious intent carries charges of treason.

It then becomes a simple cost/benefit analysis for those making these things secret. All we (the people) have to do is make sure that the penalties are appropriate.

The difference is that those 40 web browsers are _supposed_ to work identically via standards and APIs. 40 platforms, by definition, have different APIs.

Of course in the real world those browsers will be different, but at least the goal is there.