Going Google just got easier since Google announced today that certain businesses may receive Google Apps for Work at no cost if you have a qualifying contract for productivity software, such as an enterprise agreement (EA), you can use Google Apps at no charge until your old agreement expires. In the announcement Google will even chip in on some of the deployment costs and set you up for success with one of the Google for Work Partners and ConnectedLiving can be your Google for Work Partner. There are now over five million businesses that have Google Apps for Work (GaW). This was announced also by Reuters and the Huffington Post.
Google initially set up beta Gmail accounts for San Jose City College in February of 2006 which was the initial beginnings of GaW. In August 2006 Google announced the Google Apps for Your Domain and gave away free accounts. In October it was announced that the Google Apps for Education program allowing schools to have Google Apps for free. In February 2007 Google announced the Google Apps Premier Edition which increased storage to 10 Gigabytes and began charging for this service with a low fee. In July 2010 Google introduced Google Apps for Government. In April 2011 Google limited the free (legacy) edition to 10 users. On December 6, 2012 Google announced that the free (legacy) edition was no longer available but has allowed existing accounts to be grandfathered in (we have a post on the limitations of the legacy edition for our clients who continue to remain with this service). Google changed the name to Google Apps for Business and later to Google Apps for Work.
With the announcement today if your business qualifies you can receive GaW with 30 gigabytes of email and Google Drive for each user in your company and receive some assistance from a Google Apps for Work Partner and ends when your current EA contract expires. This is a very cost effective method of trying out GaW for your company. Contact ConnectedLiving if you are interested.
