Business users will have access to 10 times the applications they’ve had previously.
If you are a Google (GOOG) Apps customer or administrator, you will soon have access to all of the products and services that consumer Gmail users have used for years. Google Voice, Reader, Blogger, Picassa and other apps will now be at Apps users’ disposal.
Google is flipping Apps for domain users over to new infrastructure (your administrators can do it manually) over the next three months.
The additional services are not covered by the Google Apps SLA or telephone support that’s included for its paid customers.
I’ve been using the new infrastructure for a few weeks now and overall it works great. My biggest gripe is that I can no longer keep my Apps account and my Gmail account open on the same browser at the same time. I’ve resorted to using two different browsers for both accounts. Google provides the video below:
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nZOCOF15BBQ&w=600&h=375]
I anticipate that this will be especially popular for the 10+ million students out there that use Google Apps for Education.
Google today also simplified the names of their different apps offerings…
- Google Apps is our free service geared towards families, entrepreneurs and other groups up to 50 users.
- Google Apps for Business offers 25GB of e-mail storage per user, a 99.9% up-time guarantee, data migration capabilities, advanced management tools, telephone support, added security features and more, all for $50 per user per year.
- Google Apps for Government is FISMA certified and designed with local, state and federal agencies in mind.
- Google Apps for Education offers many benefits of Google Apps for Business, but at no cost to schools, universities and qualifying non-profits.