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Google Axes Free Google Apps For Businesses

Posted by Soulskill on from the bringing-home-the-bacon dept.

New submitter Macfox writes "In a move to focus on serving small business better, Google has axed the popular free edition of Google Apps for businesses. From Dec 6th, it will not be possible to sign up for the free edition. In a statement to the Wall Street Journal, Google's senior vice president in charge of Google Apps said Google wants to provide small businesses that use the free version of the software with dedicated customer support — something only paying customers currently get. 'We're not serving them well,' he said of the free users." Google's blog post notes that "this change has no impact on our existing customers, including those using the free version."

2 of 141 comments (clear)

  1. I use apps for business as a family account by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Interesting

    I used to run all my own email etc. on a server in my house, but a year or so ago I moved it all onto a 'google apps for business' account. Since then, my kids and wife have all started using google stuff much more often and it's hugely useful for us to be able to collect all that under accounts tied to the family google apps domain.

    Google should do something family-related in this area, they could cut out 95% of the features of apps for business, but the most useful stuff is creating sites, sharing docs and drive between members and most importantly for me to be able to manage the accounts of all of us. There are alternatives, but this is a nice setup which works well.

  2. Re:To better serve you... by mattiaza · · Score: 5, Interesting

    I don't think it's a blatant lie. I think it's more to do with expectation management. Many people still expect customer support for free services, and get upset if their calls or emails are ignored - which is much more expensive than running the web service itself. There was a Slashdot discussion about a similar problem at an Open Source company last month: http://ask.slashdot.org/story/12/11/26/2345214/ask-slashdot-troubling-trend-for-open-source-company No matter how many disclaimers you put on your website or how many times you repeat the "support costs extra", many free users are still upset at you, and will complain about it on the internet.