Google Apps can be a small firm's best friend

ByABC News
February 13, 2008, 1:04 AM

SAN FRANCISCO -- For Raj, the decision started with cost. Apps is cheap or free, has more liberal usage terms than Office and doesn't require a tech team to set up and manage.

"But it's not just that," he says. "You have no idea how much time it takes to train people. The young people we attract to work here are very familiar with Google. That's a tremendous savings."

Microsoft Office is a software behemoth in Corporate America. But as Microsoft tries to absorb Yahoo in a proposed $44.6 billion takeover the better to make inroads into Internet advertising, which Google now dominates Google is moving ahead with initiatives to fight its way onto Microsoft turf.

A free version of Google Apps does not include tech support. For $50 a year per employee, a Premier version includes tech phone support and more e-mail storage. Universities get Apps for free. Some large ones have signed on, including Arizona State University and Northwestern University.

Google Apps product manager Matt Glotzbach says the company has picked up 500,000 customers for Apps since it launched in February 2007 and is adding 20,000 users every day.

Still, that barely registers a dent in Microsoft's Office armor. The software giant says it has more than 500 million Office users. Some 62% of U.S. businesses use Microsoft's Outlook e-mail software, compared with less than 1% for corporate webmail like Google's, says Tom Austin, an analyst at researcher Gartner.

Free webmail for small companies is fine, says Chris Capossela, a Microsoft senior vice president. As companies grow, they'll want "far more control over how (their) data is managed," he says.