Called Google Apps Premier Edition, the software suite includes word processing, spreadsheet, email and instant messaging applications for US$50 a year per user.
The new Google personal productivity tools play in precisely the same market space as Microsoft’s dominant Office Suite. And the US$50 per year entry is considered extremely aggressive, given Microsoft Office retails for about $500 per user.
Google Apps Premier Edition pricing includes phone support, additional storage, and a new set of administration and business integration capabilities.
Google launched an advertising-supported free version of Google Apps late last year and says 100,000 small businesses and hundreds of universities now use the service.
The free version of the software will continue to be available, but Google expects the increased storage and broader functionality of the Premier edition will attract existing users to the paid service.
Google also hope it can attract corporate customers to the hosted platform. The company announced that Procter & Gamble Global Business Services had enrolled as one of a series of “charter enterprise customer” of Google Apps.”
“P&G will work closely with Google in shaping enterprise characteristics and requirements for the popular tools,” said Procter & Gamble GBS director Laurie Heltsley.
Features of Google Apps Premier includes 10GB of storage per user; APIs for business integration; Service Level Agreements with 99.9 per cent uptime; and 24x7 support for critical issues.
For more Web Applications news click here.
