Lots of small businesses who are just getting established tend to go out to places like 1&1 and other “a la carte” style ISPs to get a domain name, email boxes, calendar, file storage, etc. Most of these services don’t have much, if any, integration with one another, limited space and they all have some associated cost.

Enter Google Apps for Domains.

Surprisingly, lots of people, outside of administrators and IT nerds, don’t realize Google Apps for Domains even exists. These are 2 main levels of service with Google Apps, Standard and Premier. Standard provides 50 email boxes, each with ~7.5gb of space EACH and this is slowly, but constantly, increasing. Included are utilities such as Google Docs, Calendar, Groups, Sites, Contacts and more that are all integrated into one interface with a single signin.

For file storage, Google Docs now supports the uploading of more than just documents, spreadsheets, etc. You can now upload any kind of file and have up to 1gb of space in additional to the email space.

There are more settings and features than 90% of people will even use. It is absolutely perfect for small/medium organizations.

Best of all, Google Apps Standard is FREE.

For larger entities that need enterprise level features and organizational integration, Google Apps for Business fills those needs. There are many additional options within the control panel that allow integration into existing auth servers and corporate IT resources. Instead of 7.5gb of email space per box, it is increased over threefold to 25gb. That is a massive amount of space for email. I get a lot of mail, including large attachments, and have been keeping all my mail for the last 5-6 years in my standard account. It’s only 50% full.

Per user, Google Apps Premier only runs around ~$5/month. Most “enterprise” level email systems such as AppRiver and other Exchange providers cost anywhere from $9 to $15/month or more if you need a blackberry or other smartphone connected.

There are too many features to list here, visit the Google Apps for Business page to find specifics.

Clayton Design has setup many standard and premier accounts over the past year and the endusers seem to love it. Their own email can now be used across all of Google’s services instead of having to have a separate gmail address.

Contact us with any questions or if you would like us to help you set it up. Even if you already have email boxes somewhere else, we can perform an virtually seamless, full migration over to the new service.

We’re sure you’ll like it, we did and have never looked back.