Goolge Apps for small businesses

By Vivek Puri | August 28th, 2006 at 06:58 am ET         

Google is on track to build competition for Microsoft Inc’s office product line. They have introduced hosted version of Gmail, Google talk, Google calendar, and Page Creator as Google Apps. Right now, these Apps are targeted towards Small to Medium businesses and might expand to bigger organizations later on. Setting up an account with Gmail Apps is simple. Just submit you domain name and answer few questions and you will get an invite in your gmail account and you are all set. First 25 user accounts can be created for free and you need to pay after that, although i didn’t see an option to pay. The best part is you can also chat using Google Talk, which will counter the IBM Sametime in coporate world. All i need now is a free version of webex or gotomeeting.com and i am all set to collaborate.
Personally I have been using these Apps for couple of my domains and pretty satisfied right now although Om Malik seems to have reservations due to privacy issues, which offcourse are valid and will determine the future of this service. My basic requirements were web-based solution with spam control which i got for free. Below are some screenshots for the service. Overall, another of Google’s nicely package app.

Links:
Google Apps