Google launches hosted Apps for the enterprise
Web search giant Google is expected to launch hosted desktop applications that will compete head on with Microsoft Office and Windows Live.
Google Apps Premier Edition follows on last August’s launch of Google Apps for Your Domain, a set of hosted applications for home users and SMEs.
This new suite brings together e-mail, Outlook-style calendars, messaging and VoIP (voice over IP) applications, as well as word processing and spreadsheets.
Most important, pricing is expected to be $50 per account per year – something like one tenth of the nearest Microsoft equivalent. And users get 10Gb storage per user and APIs (application programming interfaces) for business system integration.
What’s more, Google is talking about 99.9% uptime guarantees and 24/7 support.
This launch could be an industry rocker.