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For six years, the Internet Nexus served as my technology blog, but I've since started blogging at the SuperSite Blog instead. If you're looking for the blog, please head there. --Paul

Friday, February 23, 2007

Google Apps grows up

Google Blog:

I'm excited to tell you that our baby has finally graduated and is entering the business world. Google Apps Premier Edition is a new version designed to take on all the challenges presented by businesses with complex IT needs. For $50 per account per year, you get the whole Google Apps package plus many new business-oriented features, including access to our APIs and partner solutions (so it’s easy to integrate with existing systems), conference room scheduling for Calendar, 10GB of inbox storage, extended business hours phone support, and mobile access to your email on BlackBerry devices (just in case you can't get enough at the office).

Already, companies big and small, like Procter & Gamble, General Electric Corporation, Prudential, and SF Bay Pediatrics, are talking about how this new version of Google Apps makes it easy to offer low-cost communication and collaboration tools to all their employees so they can get on with what they do best.

Google Apps also won't forget its roots anytime soon. The Standard and Education Editions will continue to be offered for free, and we'll keep working on all three flavors of Google Apps with the help of feedback from all of you. As a start, we’ve just integrated Google Docs & Spreadsheets in all three editions so that everyone can share and edit documents online. Since August, we’ve also added five more major features you've requested, including customized service URLs (mail.yourcompany.com) and domain registration for organizations that don’t yet have a custom domain. Our appearance has matured too, with updates to the administrator control panel that make it easier to setup and manage your services.

I'm still struck by this weird feeling that Google will become the next Microsoft: Huge, used by billions, feared because of its power, and, ultimately, maybe even Evil to the core. Microsoft has fixed most of its problems, of course, but Google is on the way up. It's so controversial, in fact, that I fully expect Google to join technologies like Linux and the Mac in the "fanatic sweepstakes," assuming that hasn't happened already. It seems like there's a lot more going on in Google-ville than with many other technologies, and it's changing all the time. But two things amaze me: First, no one is really all that concerned about Google's power, though they should be. Secondly, Google's solutions are often not best of breed. Google Talk is a joke, and anyone who's looked at Yahoo Mail Beta will agree that it's a million times nicer than Gmail. It's not even close. I wonder why Yahoo doesn't evoke the same feelings as does Google.

And seriously, is anyone sane actually using Google Docs? Seriously?

Labels: Google, Internet

[ Posted at 9:50 AM | Permalink ]