Google Apps. The free version?

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silentbee

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I’m about to become self-employed. And I’d like to use an Exchange-type service. I think that Google Apps will fulfil my needs. I just don’t know if I should upgrade to the pay version.

Has anyone used this service for a small business application?

I want my email to be available on my phone and PC. My Gmail already is, so I guess it will be fine. I’m happy to use the web interface, but can I use something else? Outlook?

I need Calendars to work and work well. My life is in my Google Calendars. Again, I’m happy to use the web interface, but can I use Outlook? I have not shared my Google Calendar. How is the sharing? I’d like it to work like Outlook – only show when I’m unavailable to some people, but show more detailed information to others, like my family.

Finally, I need my contacts to back up properly and sync across my PCs and phone. I’m using an Android phone at the moment and the contacts from Google are such a mess that I only display the contacts on the phone itself. Google seems to collect email addresses and create contacts for people like [email protected]. It’s clearly going to take a bit of effort to maintain contacts that are organised. Can they be shared with other people? And can I only share some of them? I don’t need co-workers to have the contact details of my hairdresser, along with the notes saved inside the contact.

;)
 
I use the free version for a number of sites, apart from the contact synchronisation (I've never tried) it should do everything you want.

You can always upgrade later if the free version isnt cutting it.
 
Elimentals said:
Google Calender in Outlook:
http://support.google.com/calendar/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=89955
Click to expand...

I use that at the moment for syncing a Google calendar with my work Outlook calendar. It's not useless, but it's not good enough for a business solution. It will not sync recurring events that I have been invited to. And it once wiped everything. It's good enough to get my current work stuff onto my Android phone as reminders, and I just remember the recurring events. I wouldn't use it for my own production environment.
 
silentbee said:
I use that at the moment for syncing a Google calendar with my work Outlook calendar. It's not useless, but it's not good enough for a business solution. It will not sync recurring events that I have been invited to. And it once wiped everything. It's good enough to get my current work stuff onto my Android phone as reminders, and I just remember the recurring events. I wouldn't use it for my own production environment.
Click to expand...

Thanx for the feedback, I dont use Windows/Outlook so did not know that. Will defiantly keep it in mind next time I inform someone.
 
For the Contacts just go to Settings--> General --> create contact and change it to I'll add contacts myself
 
I use the free version for my personal domian, and we have the paid version at work (did a lot of the implementation).
In general there should not be a reason to have to link it to Outlook. 99% of what you want to do will work without using any outside apps. If you do want to use outlook you have to use the google apps sync http://tools.google.com/dlpage/gappssync. That will avoid any problems with the calanders as stated above. Included in the download is the migration tool. That helps upload old mail from your current outlook into Google.

The whole problem with the contact sync has a lot to do with management. Yes gmail likes to add all the random e-mail accounts to your contacts, but creating the groups correctly will split the "e-mail only" contacts from your "phone" contacts. It might be worth while to backyp and export all your contacts from your phone and gmail, wipe it clean and then re-load a clean copy (done at your own discression).
 
Oh and p.s. the main diffrence between the free and paid versions from what we could tell are as follows.

* 7.6gb in free 25 gb in paid. (plus unlimited archiving in postini etc.)
* Postini services in paid, none in free. Has a lot to do with backup, archiving , spam and virus control and advanced routing for mails etc.... The type of service that a big company needs, but a bit overkill for a small company.
* the free version is the same platform as gmail itself, a lot more cutting edge etc. so can have some "problems" with addons (Labs) etc. the paid version is stable, the addons in the Labs section is generally tested and won't break.
*the free version has adds, same as gmail. The paid version does not have any.

In general the free version has not given me any problems.
 
I am also using the free version with my own domain and just forwarding my domain mail to my personal gmail inbox since switching between the two is too much of a pain.
 
nfbs said:
I am also using the free version with my own domain and just forwarding my domain mail to my personal gmail inbox since switching between the two is too much of a pain.
Click to expand...

I highly recommend google apps free, it should do most of whats needed in a small business, and you get to keep costs low as possible - trust me you'll need that with a startup.
 
You should really check out Office365. It's $6 or something per month, but DEFINITELY well worth it.

p.s. I am self employed.
 
Use Gapps Free for Personal and Studies
Gapps premium for our business (15 users)
and I dont think you get a much better system.... especially if you guys are hi tech and you make use of all the addtionals..
Google sites and groups(unlimited alias's)...

Contact sharing is just not great
 
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