Google Launches Blogger for your Domain
Google has come a long way. First, there was Gmail for your domain — a limited service that helped organizations offer personalized Gmail inboxes to all their users. As it picked up new skills (Calendar, Talk, and Page Creator), it grew out of its old name and into Google Apps for Your Domain.
Google Apps had now perfected 17 more languages, so it could help bring the communication tools all around the globe. Later, it improved our organizational skills with the Start Page, which brought all the Apps together into a centralized place. Then the school was launched. Students all over the world are raving about Google Apps, how it saves money and IT resources, plus makes students live easier with bigger spam-free mailboxes and a set of tools for working together.
Then they nurtured it and entered the business world. Google Apps Premier Edition was a new version designed to take on all the challenges presented by businesses with complex IT needs. For $50 per account per year, you get the whole Google Apps package plus many new business-oriented features, including access to the APIs and partner solutions (so it’s easy to integrate with existing systems), conference room scheduling for Calendar, 10GB of inbox storage, extended business hours phone support, and mobile access to your email on Blackberry devices (just in case you can't get enough at the office). It is less expensive compared to others in the category, but with much the same functionality. Microsoft also has its own web-based suite of tools in Office Live, but the company's offer does not seem to match Google's. And Google isn't going after Office Live, it's going after Office.
Google Apps also never forgot its roots anytime. The Standard and Education Editions are still offered for free. The ingredients of all three include a word processor, spreadsheet, e-mail, calendar and web page creator. There are many reasons to get excited about Google's new plan. Reasons to switch to Google's web-based office suite include:
- Domain Name: The domain is registered as private. This means your contact information won't be available on the “who’s who” public database. Other companies charge up to $8 for this feature alone. Google supports top-level domains like the .com, .net, .org, .biz, and .info. You have the ease of paying via Google Checkout (indirectly - your international credit card).
- Cost: The basic service is free. Google's $50-per-year price tag for a premium service is really cheap. Telephone, e-mail- to support up to 1100 users, and web support are included in that price. So, organizations could see a drop in IT support costs as well.
- Centralized data storage. Documents are available from any web browser, easing the convenience for remote workers. Plus, 10 GB is plenty of room. For most users, that's more than they'll ever need.
- Security. Data is accessed through secure connections and stored redundantly, and Gmail uses SSL for mail connections. On paper, that's just as secure as Microsoft's desktop solutions. Google also offers enterprise customers the ability to push all mail traffic through a self-hosted gateway. Users get Gmail's slick interface and corporations get to fold in existing procedures like traffic monitoring and archiving. A bonus, Gmail arguably has the best spam and virus filters of all the web-based e-mail services. Gmail automatically bounces executable files (even if they are wrapped in an archive) and employs platform-wide spam filters kept current by the user community.
- 24/7 access to the work space. The beauty of web-based applications is that they are accessible from any computer with an Internet connection, anywhere in the world. Also, every worker in the company gets the same tool set — like a standard corporate software install without the production and installation costs.
- Google Apps is incomplete. Where's the PowerPoint killer? Also, anyone who keeps their entire contact list in Outlook is going to be seriously under whelmed by Gmail's contact-management features.
It should be no surprise that Google, as a company, has really embraced blogging. Googler, as it turns out, are great bloggers and have lot of interesting things to tell us about their company. They have never really been ones for corporate transparency, but Google is a big company and a lot of cool things are always being churned out so it is great to get whatever insights we can, or at least be informed of new developments.
They have introduced some cool new features. Google today announced another exciting feature to add on to its already well known Google Apps. It is the Blogger. All these days, users were doing this via tweaks in order to integrate their custom domain with a Blogger account. This is a great deal actually. People have been using Google's Blogger service for a while, running a weblog, but they had everything on someone else’s domain, not on their own. Lots of people had even lost hope after they found out that it's not possible with Blogger. But now they can have this feature. Google has made it really easy. Google will be launching its Blogger for your domain tomorrow.
This is a real value addition to Google Apps. Google Apps has already taken over the market of web-based office suit with its rewarding features. Now that the Blogger is also being introduced, the users will be even more pleased. While there are tons of places where you can get services, the trust factor associated with the "Google" brand plus the convenience of a one-stop shop will make them a winner definitely. You definitely don’t want to pay your pocket for something you can as well get for free and moreover get it from a firm you have been relying upon for many other needs.
So, its high time, to get your customized domain name, web office services and now, the blogger for your domain, from a company you trust – Google.
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