14 DAY TRIAL // Recently, rumors about a new paid service released by Google were spreading on the Internet, but the search giant refused to comment them. Today, it seems like the speculations about a new paid service provided by Google were really true because the company released a new flavor of the Google Apps for your Domain especially designed for premium users.
"A good source tells me that Google will soon announce the selling of a premium version of their Google Apps service for $50 per year and user. Named Google Apps Premier Edition, this package will include 10 gigabytes of email storage. The service will have a 24 hour tech support as well as a promised uptime of 99.9%. Blackberrys will be able to have mobile access to emails. The package will also include Google's Docs & Spreadsheets program, that is, word processing and Google's Excel clone," Philipp Lenssen from Google Blogoscoped tried to comment new rumors.
The company also modified the design of the product and renamed the solution from Google Apps for your Domain to just Google Apps. On the versions comparison page it is mentioned that the premier edition of the service costs $50 per account for an entire year with 10GB of email storage size per account. If you want to register for the premium version of Google Apps, you can receive a free trial until April 30th, 2007 to help you test the functions of the application.
Although Google describes the service as a bundled solution that provides you private-labeled emails, instant messaging and calendar accounts to all of your users, so they can share ideas and work more effectively, the company denies that Google prepares an Office solution to compete other Internet giants such as Microsoft.