The Dilemma of Defining Google - Google Docs/Apps
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Google Docs
It all started on October 16, 2006. That day, Google combined two services: Writely and Spreadsheets. Recently, on September 16, 2007, a new product was added to the online web-based office suite that’s for presentations (by Tonic Systems).
Right now, Google Docs is a free, powerful web-based office suite that sports online collaborative technologies — editing a document simultaneously by multiple users, as well as sharing and storing documents. The limitations are 5,000 documents, 200 spreadsheets, and presentations below 10MB.
Google Docs accepts most of the popular formats (doc, xls, odt, rtf, ppt, csv, etc.). Its GUI really is a Microsoft Office and/or OpenOffice.org look-alike. The toolbars, menus, and buttons are neatly organized just like you’d expect from an office suite. You can choose the persons with whom you’ll be sharing your documents and such.
A tremendous benefit of Google Docs is the ability to export into PDF format. This is a really huge advantage because you can do this from anywhere in the world with Internet access. It’s a “sort of” replacement for my Open Office.org Portable Edition.
The only drawback is the lack of enhanced security and protection. By default it does not use an encrypted HTTPS protocol but you can opt for it, so that’s great. Additionally, most of the users neglect the amount of time they are logged into their Google ‘unified’ account (it's the same account for each of Google’s services); this can be exploited and results in a potential threat to security. Be careful with sensitive data!
(Control Panel of Google Docs)
In my opinion Google Docs is a really powerful alternative office suite for users without top-notch expectations and sky-high requirements, because it is web-based and you can access it from anywhere in the world via the Internet. What’s even more is that it is free; you won’t pay a nickel, and the ability to collaborate and work on documents with various users at the same is a real advantage.
Google Apps
This service was launched back in February 2006 and it was called “Gmail for Your Domain” during the beta stages. As the development progressed many other features were added as well and the service was renamed Google Apps, mostly because it features web applications and office suites like Docs and Spreadsheets, Talk, Calendar, etc.
There are three types of accounts: Standard Edition (free), Premium Edition ($50 per user account per year) and Education Edition (free to accredited colleges, universities, etc).
The main difference between these is the email storage per account. With the free editions the storage space for each account is akin to the Gmail accounts, which is around 4.6270GB at the time of writing this article, but it’s still counting. For the Premium paid edition the ceiling is 25GB (with more on the way) per account.
Additionally, the standard free edition lacks the ability to manipulate your infrastructures with APIs, no 24/7 phone support or other third party services, and it’s not guaranteed for 99.99% email uptime. Hey, we can live without these!
(Google Apps Online Dashboard)
Summing these up, if you have a domain(s) I don’t see why you shouldn’t use this amazing feature, especially since it’s free. During the early beta stages it was unclear whether it would remain free or not. Anyway, the setting up process takes a short amount of time (setting up accounts and adding the required DNS changes.) Try it out!
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