That said, $50 a year is not really that much considering the service provided.
Now I have to contact all of the people I've sent proposals to, telling them that the "free email service through Google Apps" I promised them is no longer free. Google should have told us Apps Resellers, or, at the least, they should give us an opportunity to create a few more free Apps accounts for clients we've been pitching their product to. Not every business starts out with a need for >10 users. Google has been telling their Apps Resellers to get people 'hooked' on the free version of Apps, then migrate them to the paid offering. Now what?
If your clients have waited until 2 weeks before Christmas to sign, then they are actually the bad guys and they deserve to pay more. When exactly are you supposed to do your gift shopping?
I think I signed up for my personal domain when it was 50, and my business domain when it was 10, I'd kinda like to check. Glad I go the business mail up and running in September now!
OR (if this works) https://www.google.com/a/cpanel/DOMAIN.COM/CPanelHome#SetupW...
change DOMAIN.COM to your domain
- "I think you're missing the point. Some startups are getting going with zero capital because an individual with some skills and some time can produce and sell a product using free cloud services and then once they've made a few bob can upgrade.
- Google WERE supporting this model very well - shame on you for stopping."
This is ridiculous, besides the absurd sense of entitlement, it's only $50/year. People who build startups spend more on their lattes or phone subscription in a month. Come on.
When App Engine had its major round of price increases a year or two ago, a number of small developers in Africa and India complained on the mailing list. Apparently the nearly-free service of GAE was supporting a number of entrepreneurs who live a very different life from the typical bay area startup groupie.
Anyway this is a decent compromise. I think the most compelling use case for free was the single user "experimental" use case anyway.
Many people, myself included, want to use all of the personal services that Google provides backed by their own domain, not Gmail. You used to be able to do this sans hosted email, but that feature got removed a year or two back. If you wanted to use your own domain, you had to sign up for an entire Apps account, when it really should have been the same as before + some MX records for hosted email.
Perhaps using your own domain for a Google Account should be a paid service anyway, and $50/year isn't incredibly pricey. But a 99.9% uptime SLA and phone support aren't necessary for what can really be just a vanity. (That said, phone support in Google's ecosystem is kind of nice...)
There was App Engine, there was Google+, there was Android, there was Voice, and a long host of others.
I've set up Google Apps for Business / Domains for so many SMEs and this thing is definitely cutting the Office grass under a certain competitor's feet. I'm not saying said competitor is not enjoying amazing revenues: all I'm saying is Google is hurting other office suites sales with Google Apps for Domains.
People are delighted with this "free" solution. Now I'm going to have to bill them at least $50 / user per year and they'll start thinking about buying Office from another competitor again.
I understand Google needing to make money with this, but IMHO it's way too soon. They should have waited to "bait" way more SMEs into their net before doing such a move.
Now its all changed. $50 per user isn't a huge amount but it is more then zero. Google has taken the default choice for many people and made us rethink it. It can only work poorly for them.