Apps for your Domain: Google

http://theinternetispeople.com/2006/08/28/apps-for-your-domain-googles-office-suite-launches/

Google have released Apps for your Domain, which is more or less the long-promised Google Office. Gmail, Talk, Calendar and Page Creator are part of the suite right now, with Writely and Google Spreadsheet to follow. This is a pretty fully-featured web office suite which takes a pretty violent swipe at Microsoft. All that’s missing is a way to install these applications on an organisation’s infrastructure - much like the Google Search Appliance. Might we also see variants on Google Base, too?

The source Information Week article notes that:

The APIs are perhaps the most important bit: as I’ve already noted, these allow users to customise the system to suit their needs. For larger organisations in particular, this is crucial.

However, over at GigaOm, Om Malik talks a little about why they’re not using it: the privacy policy wasn’t stringent enough to meet their needs, particularly after the AOL search data fiasco. Similarly, Kent Newsome has some misgivings:

However, there are alternatives. As Michael Arrington points out over at Techcrunch, the Zoho Virtual Office has been around for a while, and any company wanting to get into the online office space could do so with an easy acquisition. Unfortunately, Zoho are missing out on important features - like APIs (aside from Zoho Planner), and single sign on between their applications. Update: it would appear there are actually no less than 17 web-based competitors to Microsoft Office.

Click here to view Apps for your Domain - or the companion Google Apps for Education.