Has anyone switch from Exchange 2003 to Google?

We are a small private school, about 40 mailboxes. We are currently using Exchange 2003 with shared calendars, contacts and phone syncing. We just learned that the latest version of Office for Mac is not Exchange 2003 compatible, plus the box it is running on is 6+ years old..so it is time to change.

One person suggested going to Google apps especially considering that it is free for schools.

Has anyone actually gone from Exchange 2003 to Google? I hear Google now has Outlook integration..any one have success with this? What are your general thoughts?

My apologies I believe this got posted in the wrong area..can’t figure out how to move it.