Good and Bad of Google Apps

Google today introduced Google Apps Premier Edition, a more advanced paid version of Google Apps .  Google launched Google Apps as a free service August 2006.  Google Apps Premier Edition will be available for free until April 30, 2007 and then cost $50 per  user account per year.

This is Google's paid service that competes directly with Microsoft. Not surprisingly many bloggers and pundits have opinions.

AMR Research analyst Jim Murphy
Kyle McNabb of Forrester Research in Cambridge, Massachusetts sees Google's move as
Marshall Kirkpatrick of praises Google's innovation. "Its nearly full-service suite of sophisticated, integrated online services is something of historic proportion. Google’s technological brilliance is only beginning to be recognized. What do I mean by that? I mean that with its powerful algorithms to analyze and contextualize information, combined with its growing catalogue of information to analyze - Google is an epoch defining company. Send the world’s business communication through Google and the machine gets a whole lot smarter."

Technology blogger Mark Evans
Slashdott'ers generally
"Google's email is great, but their Spreadsheet and Word Processor solutions are nowhere near as sophisticated as MS Office. And in an office environment, many of those differences do matter."

"I just don't see the reason to pay 50 bucks for this. It's only a competitive price if your offering a competitive product."

"If I use Google they have everything and can and will copy and use it to their benefit, and perhaps your competitors benefit."

"Um...it was fun to play with while it was free. $50/year for these toys is a bit much."