:: Media Viper ::

Google gave me a nice bite yesterday and I had meant to post my disdain about it but decided to wait and let the sting heal a bit. As you may know Google launched a enterprise version of its Web applications including Docs & Spreadsheets, Gmail, Google Calendar, Google Talk, and a customizable home page builder.

For those not familiar with the Google Enterprise it allows webmasters like you and I to have our business e-mail and now other applications hosted on Googles’ server. Really it’s a way for Google to display ads to my e-mail list, users of my domain and myself.

The business enterprise presentation or Google Apps Premier Edition delivers a new interface shown in the images (click to enlarge) which show the dashboard interface Google has developed.

The new offering of bundled services includes additional e-mail storage a nice bundle of administrative and business integration tools. Definitely competing with some other services that are available.

Here is the bite…this was at one time free, now there is a fee of $50 per user account, per year. While expecting Google to integrate Docs & Spreadsheets into its Apps for Domain bundle, which allows webmasters to customize the Google applications for our own websites and domains, I had no idea there would be a fee charged.

Well I did have a sort of idea but they could have sent an e-mail to let webmasters know about the planned offerings and associated charges.

So while Google portends to be a more “open” Google, it still has quite a few closed door sessions.