Cemaphore Systems Tuesday said it would ship this month the next beta for its tool that synchronizes Outlook data with Gmail and lets users straddle a locally deployed Microsoft Exchange Server and Google’s online messaging service.

The company made the announcement at Microsoft’s annual TechEd conference.

MailShadow for Google Apps, known as MailShadowG, is an add-on for Microsoft’s Outlook client. With the tool, users can synchronize their e-mail, contacts and calendars between Outlook and Gmail.

The company, a Microsoft partner, is not touting MailShadowG as a way for users to replace their Exchange Server back-end infrastructure. MailShadowG is positioned more in a back-up and convenience role.

In fact, company officials admit that the synchronization is not a 1-to-1 match for everything, such as marking calendar entries as “recurring.” Cemaphore, however, says the synchronization is a match 95% of the time.

MailShadowG synchronizes content bi-directionally and in real time. Users will retain access to the data through the traditional Gmail Web-based interface.

Cemaphore will begin its Beta 2 program at the end of June and is opening it up to anyone. Beta 1, which launched in May to strong reviews, was a private beta. General release of the software will come before the end of September, according to the vendor.

Once available, beta participants can purchase the software for $29.95 per seat for the first year. The annual license price is regularly $49.95.

The company says once MailShadowG is complete it will develop similar software for other e-mail platforms.