Hosted email solutions from Google – Business or Free ?

I’m confused by the value of the offerings for Google Apps from Google. Business and free edition ??.

I’m thinking of moving my corporate / business e-mail to a hosted solution.So, I am exploring the options that are available for Google’s email solution.

Here is what I am looking for:

  • First and foremost is availability. I want it available always (100% availability) Since nowadays email runs businesses.
  • Value! ! I don’t mind paying but I expect to get additional value for the paid service when comparing it to a free service. Support is very important
  • IMAP and POP access to e-mail accounts.
  • Emails, contacts and Calender should be in Sync. I don’t want to open my outlook to see meetings. Want to access them from my Blackberry directly.
  • Clean and usable web interface to e-mail. This is going to be used by non-technical staff (sales & marketing) , so ease of use is very important.
  • Decent amount of storage space. Decent is defined by me to be 10 GB of storage.

Google Apps Free edition does not have support. No SLA (Service Level Agreement) for availability which mean no uptime Guarantee ….Sorry not for businesses. But on the other hand Google Apps Business Edition offers powerful messaging and collaboration apps that meet business-critical needs:

  • 99.9% uptime guarantee
  • 25GB of email storage per employee
  • Blackberry and Microsoft Outlook interoperability
  • Mobile email, calendar and IM access
  • Industry-leading security
  • Full administrative and data control
  • Helpful support choices
  • $50 per user per year
  • Proven cost savings

These above feature make it enterprise and business ready hosted email solution.

Compare Google Apps Business v/s Google Apps Free

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