If you’re like me, you have spent years purchasing and installing applications for your computer. The centerpiece of those applications has probably been Microsoft Office, the application suite that is virtually ubiquitous and that includes the Microsoft Word word processing application, Microsoft Excel for spreadsheet, PowerPoint for presentations, Outlook for e-mail and communications, and Access for database applications.
Every few years, a new version of Office is released, and you have the option of installing it so you can keep up with the people you work with in other companies, who have their own versions of Office, too.
Google Apps is a set of Web and business applications that is aimed at competing with Microsoft Office. What makes Google’s offering dramatically different from Office is the fact that the applications are all offered online as Web-based services that you access with your Web browser, not as separate applications you install on your computer. This ‘‘software as a service’’ approach wasn’t invented by Google.
Lots of other companies give you the ability to store files, keep your financial records, and perform other functions online using your browser. The fact that these applications are being offered by one of the most popular and best-known—not to mention most successful—Web businesses around is what makes Google Apps notable. Google Apps is Google’s signal that it wants to shift from being the leader in Web search to a leader (if not eventually the leader) in Web services.
The ‘‘Software as a Service’’ Approach to Work One big advantage of ‘‘software as a service’’ (also known as Web-based applications) is the fact that the end user does not have to go through the expense of buying the package (or at least paying as much as Microsoft Office or its big brother Microsoft Exchange costs these days). The package was launched in August of 2006 and includes the Google email service Gmail, Google Talk, Google Calendar, Google Page creator, and Docs & Spreadsheets. The latter two are positioned as competitors to Microsoft Excel and Word.
Users: they don’t give you all the features of these Microsoft Office applications, but as you’ll see later in this chapter, they’re quite adequate for basic everyday use, either in the office or at home. You also gain access to Google Analytics, a hosted service for tracking Web site usage and traffic.
Google Apps Premier
Buying the premier version of Google Apps increases e-mail space to 10GB per account, adds several new applications such as Gmail for mobile devices, and promises nearly 100 percent uptime for $50 per user per year. This is far less than the $225 per year it costs to use Microsoft Exchange, and the $499 cost to purchase a single standalone version of Microsoft Office Professional Edition 2007. This level also lets you use programming instructions Google Apps recognizes so your company can create custom programs that allow you to customize your service.
Competitors to Google Apps
Google Apps isn’t the first player in the field of Web-based business applications. It’s got some catching up to do with companies that have paved the way. By knowing who the other players are in the field, you can make a more informed decision about whether or not to sign up for Google Apps yourself, as well as whether or not to choose the Premier version.
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