Google Office Has Arrived
Yesterday, Google announced Google Apps Premier Edition, which is a new version of Google’s hosted services. For $50 per user account per year, Google Apps Premier Edition includes Gmail for your domain, Gmail for mobile on Blackberry devices, Google Calendar with shared calendaring, Google Docs & Spreadsheets, Google Talk instant messaging/voice-over-IP, and a customizable Start Page. However, all those apps are currently available for free. What make the Premier service worth the $50 per year is the 24×7 support, including phone support for administrators; additional email storage of 10 GB per user; APIs for data migration, user provisioning, single sign-on, and mail gateways; 99.9% uptime SLA’s (Service Level Agreements) with credits to customers when service levels aren’t met; optional advertising (ads are turned off by default, however, you can turn them on if you would like…as if); and application level control to allow administrators to adapt the services to business practices.
The only thing missing is a slideshow creation app, but, rumor has it, Google’s working on that too under the code name "Presently."
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The really cool thing is that there is now a real API. There will be some cool applications popping up… on the web and on the desktop…. for example… we are now developing an FREE open source “business application platform” (think salesforce.com). Our first application is working tightly integrated with GOOGLE APPS. Check it out if you are interested. http://www.applicationexchange.com