The 'Google Apps Standard' Myth Explained

When you talk to different people in the tech industry today, or even in different business circles, you’re bound to come across a few myths about most tech products. One of those is that there’s one standard edition of Google Apps for Business. At Coolhead Tech it’s a myth that we come across time and again from misinformed customers. To get things straight right off the bat, there is no standard business edition of Google Apps. In fact there are three options from which different businesses can choose. Each option caters to a different type of business, so it’s important to know which one is right for you.

Google Apps for Business

Google Apps for Business is the cloud based productivity suite that is taking the business market by storm. Since its introduction, Google has signed over five million businesses around the world to Google Apps for Business. Competing directly with offerings from Microsoft, Wordperfect, Corel etc. Google offers competitive features which make for a very compelling reason to invest in their cloud based productivity suite.

Because it’s a cloud solution, users can take their work with them anywhere. There’s less overhead for rolling out and supporting the suite, and updates are provided (and installed) by Google. It’s a very hands off experience as far as maintaining the necessary infrastructure is concerned, and for small and medium businesses there’s really no better option than a solution like this.

Here’s some of what you’ll get with the subscription:

• Custom addresses for your domain.

• Access to all of Google’s apps like Gmail, Calendar, Writer, Presentation, Drive and others.

• 30GB of storage for Gmail and Drive.

• Access from almost any device, no matter where you are.

• A highly secured cloud environment with a guaranteed 99.9% uptime.

• Additional controls for businesses, with administrative functions for each user.

Google Apps for Business with Vault

You can also Google Apps for Business with or without Vault. Vault is an additional security and back up feature that allows your data to be archived and retrieved even when it has been deleted. The Vault service is useful for businesses who deal with sensitive data and it offers future security for legal issues or similar situations where retrieval of old data is necessary. You can also customize the data retention settings on your account, making it an extremely versatile solution.

Google Apps for Education and Nonprofits

So we’ve covered both versions of Google Apps for Business, but we still have one more to go. To fill the need for inexpensive productivity solutions for educational and nonprofit organizations, Google offers a second product: Google Apps for Nonprofits.

Google Apps for Nonprofits is not a different suite of apps, rather it’s another option with some billing differences. Registered education and nonprofit organizations will have access to all of the same services included in Google Apps for Business. What will you pay for this if you meet the criteria? Absolutely nothing. For a suite that provides enough reasons alone to get on board, offering a free service for these two important types of organizations was a great move by google.

So there goes the Myth. Google DOES offer different solutions for different types of businesses, making this already versatile productivity suite even more so.

With a future that is shaping up to be more cloud based than ever before, there’s never been a better time to make the move to Google Apps for Business. Whatever type of business you run, and whatever needs you have, you can guarantee that Google has you covered.