In 2008, a colleague of ours introduced us to “Google Apps”. Google Apps was in beta back then. We signed up for an account and never looked back at our simple POP email accounts ever again.
At the time, we were hosting our own POP email server for our own company and many of our clients. Fighting spam and hackers was a full-time job, which we did not want.
When we signed up for our account, Google Apps was free for up to 100 users per account. Each account included 7 GB of email storage. It allowed us to use the power of Google’s gmail with out own @aslaninteractive.com domain name. Gmail had better spam filtering, IMAP, and a great web interface. We could also use it with our favorite email software.
Later Google Apps started a paid service and reduced the free service to only 10 users. However, Aslan and a handful of our wise clients were grandfathered into to 100 user free service. Now, the Google Apps for Work service offerings are no longer free, but our grandfathered accounts still are. The only disadvantage is that our free accounts do not come with support. This has not been a problem since we have been able to get support using Google groups.
We no longer offer an email server to our clients. Instead, we offer to help our clients set up their Google Apps for Work account. All of our clients who have switched to Google Apps have been very happy with the service.
In 2010, we had a contract with Motorola Mobility to help modify a web app they were maintaining. When I was visiting the Motorola office in Libertyville IL, I noticed that employees were using Google Apps for their @motorola.com email account. This was before Google bought Motorola Mobility.
With a Google Apps for Work account, you not only receive a great email service with your own domain name, you get company access to share Google Contacts, Google Calendar, and Google Docs(Word Processor, Spreadsheets, and Presentations). More and more companies are using cloud services such as these instead of purchasing software licenses.
We recently switched our client GIA Publications, Inc., who were already Google Apps users, to Google Calendar. They were previously using iCal on a Apple OS X Server. iCal worked well with OS X based computers, but we were having trouble with Windows PCs, Android Phones, and iPhones connecting to the internally hosted iCal server. Switching to Google Calendar was not difficult and now all GIA employees have access to the company calendars regardless of the platform they are using.
As I am writing this, Google Apps for Work is $5/month per user. That is cheap compared to what a business would have to spend for an Exchange server and the expertise to set it up and support the server.
We don’t specifically offer consulting on Google Apps for Work. However, we are happy to help our clients take advantage of this great cloud service.
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