Google Launches Business Applications

Published: February 28, 2007

by Alex Woodie

Google last week launched Google Apps Premier Edition, an updated collection of the Web-based productivity applications it originally launched last summer. With Premiere Edition, Google is including certain items--such as 24/7 support, guaranteed uptime, nearly unlimited e-mail storage, and a collection of APIs for integrating Google Apps with existing business applications. The company also launched Google Apps and Spreadsheet, two new services that could further pique the interest of business users, and possibly even grab some business from Microsoft.

Google's foray into productivity applications officially debuted this past August, when the Internet giant unveiled Google Apps For Your Domain (GAFYD), a free collection of services that included e-mail, a calendaring application, instant messaging (IM), and Web page creation services.

With last week's launch of Google Apps Premier Edition, the company has given its GAFYD offering (now renamed Google Apps Standard Edition) a bigger brother called Google Apps Premier Edition.

Google Apps Premier Edition includes all the functionality of Standard Edition, and brings several new features, including: 10 GB of e-mail storage at Gmail; a guarantee of 99.9 percent uptime of Gmail; 24/7 support, including extended hours for telephone support; a set of APIs for integrating Google Apps into customers' environments; and the capability to turn off ads. Premier Edition costs $50 per user per year. Standard Edition remains a free download.

Google has also developed an online Google Apps "control panel" that enables administrators to adapt the Google services to a company's specific business policies, such as sharing of calendars or documents outside of the company.

Also last week, Google officially rolled out Google Docs and Spreadsheet, a free, Web-based offering that gives users access to word processing and spreadsheet capabilities through a browser. Google Docs and Spreadsheets is available to all Google Apps users.

Google Docs and Spreadsheet had been in development for months, along separate tracks. Much of the work behind Google Docs was done by Upstartle, a company that had developed an online word processing product called Writely, and which Google acquired in March 2006, according to Wikipedia. Meanwhile, Google developed the spreadsheet component on its own. Both packages had been available to a select group of users, and last week marked the first time Google invited users of Google Apps to try the new Google Docs and Spreadsheets program.

The introduction of Google Apps and the new word processing and spreadsheet software firmly pits the dot-com darling against the Microsoft juggernaut, which has raked in tens of billions of dollars of profit from selling its ubiquitous Office productivity suite. While Google Apps and Google Docs and Spreadsheet aren't expected to have the same level of features and sophistication of Microsoft's Office apps, the price--$50 in the case of Google Apps, and free for the productivity software--is expected to attract the interest of businesses of all sizes.

Some businesses, such as San Francisco Bay Pediatrics, have already made the move to Google Apps and are letting Google manage their headaches. "When it comes to our e-mail systems, our doctors don't have the time or the budgets to deal with managing technology or defending against spam," says Andrew Johnson, the group's CIO. "With Google Apps Premier Edition we don't have to worry about downloading the latest spam filters or navigating unwieldy servers."

The prospects for Google look even more intriguing when one takes into account the large and disparate Office user base in the market. Many corporate Office customers are using older versions of the software, which continue to meet their needs. However, when support for their Office product ends or they upgrade their PCs, the corporate users may decide it's a good time to make the switch to free or low-cost software.

"Businesses are looking for applications that are simple and intuitive for employees, but also offer the security, reliability and manageability their organizations require," said Dave Girouard, vice president and general manager for the Google enterprise division. "With Google Apps, our customers can tap into an unprecedented stream of technology and innovation at a fraction of the cost of traditional installed solutions."

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