Google released a synchronization tool this week that allows Microsoft Outlook to front-end Gmail. The synchronization tool, which is available to users of Google Apps Premier, lets users keep their Outlook client and retain the familiar interface, while still using Gmail on the back end, and opening up the possibility of scrapping Exchange altogether. Cool piece of technology? Definitely. Good idea for the enterprise? That’s the million-dollar question, and the answer isn’t quite so clear.

On the surface, it seems like a useful piece of technology, but for corporate email, it may not be conducive to a secure environment. I’ve often noted that cloud-based email, especially the free varieties, are inherently insecure, and make it far too easy to bypass corporate email security policies. Deploying a tool to blend Outlook/Exchange and Gmail would tend to legitimize use of free public webmail systems in a corporate environment, at least in the eyes of users.

Google is of course, trying to take market share away from Microsoft and position the Apps Sync as a game-changer. However, security concerns and compliance issues will keep a lot of enterprises from going the Google route, if for no other reason, than to maintain control over where the emails and attachments are archived. Store and archive email in the cloud? Still not good enough–and compliance and privacy issues relating to cloud email storage are enormous.

Bottom line, Gmail is fine and quite useful for personal use and personal email accounts, but still needs to be kept separate from the corporate environment.