Google Apps. It's a Google World After All!

One of the most exciting things to emerge from Google recently is Google Apps for small businesses, which is a suite of applications designed to give employees powerful communication and collaboration tools. Google Apps brings your businesses' technology into the 21st century -- the century of hosted applications. This means: gone are the days of installing office software. Gone are the days of backing up data to a CD or floppy and taking it home for "off site copies." Gone are the endless days of upgrading software and maintaining server networks.

The benefit of a hosted application is that you and your employees can access the applications -- and your data -- from any internetworked computer anywhere. That means you can see your data from home, from any of your office locations, from the road, from your mother-in-law's house -- where ever. And it means that all your staff can work on the same documents and spreadsheets at the same time -- no matter where they are. Oh, and did I mention -- NO more need to buy and install expensive upgrades to your office software.

So what exactly is Google Apps offering?

1. Email and the greatest web mail client ever -- the gmail client -- except with your own domain.
2. Calendar and scheduling tools...allow your staff to share parts or all of each other's calendars and everybody can schedule shared resources -- like the conference room -- without conflict.
3. A super easy to learn and an "everything you need" word processing application.
4. Spreadsheets, spreadsheets, spreadsheets.
5. Tons of storage space.
6. A web site content management tool -- so staff can create and edit their own web pages without knowing web programming languages
7. Free voice and chat around the world.

Plus more and more to come. All these applications from a web browser? Yes! From your own domain.com? Yes yes yes! As if that isn't enough, ample storage for all your staff's apps and emails. And you can choose the free version or pay a small yearly fee for the premium version.

Sign me up!

Note from Shara: Eric Wolfram, Work.com Internet & Ecommerce community leader, is a web consultant in New York City who provides Internet technology, strategy, and development services. See even more about Eric. If you write a Work.com Internet & Ecommerce guide, Eric will comment on it!

Tags: google apps, eric wolfram

Comments

[Shara]

That's great that you can use Gmail for email from your own domain...