Blue Tent Marketing

First let’s look at the services provided. Google Apps is a suite of services for business and organizations. It includes the following:

Full Google Apps Comparison Chart

Standard and Premium Google Apps Services

Start Page: Begin by creating a personalized home page for all the office to use. Set up a customized domain start.yourdomainname.com . Add Google Gadgets to your home page. Google and 3rd parties have written a wide variety of Gadgets that do everything from tracking news feeds to playing games. You can pick and choose which Gadgets to display and move them just by dragging and dropping.

Gmail: Fast, searchable email with less spam. Set up email lists. Spam Filtering and Virus Protection are enabled and can’t be shut off so it prevents you from sending an executable file as an attachment.

Google Calendar: Share Calendars with staff and Gmail users. Using Google Calendar, you can add events and invitations effortlessly, share with staff, friends and family (or keep things to yourself), it’s organizing made easy. Gmail Integration Gmail now recognizes when messages mention events, and you can add those events to your calendar with just a couple clicks.

Google Docs & Spreadsheets: Free web-based word processor and spreadsheet, which allow you share and collaborate online. You can easily do all the basics, including making bulleted lists, sorting by columns, adding tables, images, comments, formulas, changing fonts and more. And it’s free. Upload your existing files. Google Docs accepts most popular file formats, including DOC, XLS, ODT, ODS, RTF, CSV, PPT, etc. So go ahead and upload your existing files.

Premium Services
The free (Standard) version of Google Apps is nice by itself, but for $50 per user, per year, you can upgrade to the Premier Edition.
The Premier Edition of Google Apps offers the same services as the Standard Edition with the addition of:

• Up to 25 gigs of Gmail storage space per account
• 99.9% guarantee of email uptime
• Ability to turn off AdSense ads in Gmail
• Conference room and resource scheduling
• APIs that can be integrated with your existing infrastructure
• Email migration tools
• Phone support
• Third party applications and services
• Postini mail management and recovery

These services can be blended into your existing domain and even branded with a custom company logo. For a demo please contact us.

Next: What’s involved to set up Google Apps for your domain and set up requirements?

Moira Meyers
Director of Technology

Google Apps can provide an intriguing replacement for Microsoft Exchange server. Not only can you host your domain name, but all of your email will be stored off-site in Google’s redundant facilities unsusceptible to outages with your local ISP.

Google Apps provides solutions for small and large businesses by giving your employees the next-generation communication and collaboration tools they need to manage electronic communications, share and publish information and stay connected while on the go. Sharing calendars, docs and email from your reservation system or real estate contact forms all hosted by Google, so there’s no hardware or software to download, install or maintain. With Google Apps, you can afford to provide each and every employee with the tools they need to succeed. Google Apps gives everyone at your organization a custom email address, tools for word processing, spreadsheets and presentations, a shared calendaring system and access to a flexible intranet system. Standalone security and compliance services are also available.

Google Apps currently has two available editions Standard and Premier. Standard Edition is Google Apps free edition and Google Apps Premier Edition is $50.00 / per user account / per year.

If you would like more information about Google Apps please contact us and we will follow-up with you soon. Or post a comment with any thoughts or questions about how Google Apps could work for your business or organization. I would love to hear from you.

My next blog post will compare the Google Apps Free Standard Edition and the Premier Edition. What’s involved to set up Google Apps for your domain – stay tuned …

- Moira Meyers
Director of Technology