In June 2010, Fuller bought an Android phone, which he says was his first foray into cloud. "Being able to access everything via a browser and posting e-mail in the cloud made me think that this could be the way to go [at Dominion]."

Because the majority of Outlook, Fuller and his team examined cloud options from Microsoft as well as Google. After visiting both vendors' headquarters, he determined that was a better fit from a product and price standpoint.

"The ease of accessing all the different aspects of the collaboration suite from one Gmail interface and the simplicity of the pricing model are what stood out," Fuller says.

While was a relatively easy sell for him and many of Dominion's employees--65 percent of whom were already familiar with Gmail--other executives at the company were not as readily convinced.

"Moving to the cloud was a kind of change that was boiling up from the rank and file employees," Fuller says. "The C-level was harder--privacy and security were their biggest concerns. Outlook had become comfortable for them, and they were hesitant about making the change."