What is Google Apps?

What is Google Apps?

Google Apps is, in short, a productivity suite.

The long drawn out version is:

Google Apps exists, benevolently enough, to take care of productivity issues and store stuff you need in a, "cloud" our web based area. This allows users to access it from any location without utilizing Gotomypc.com or something of that nature.

First, it is important to note that there are 2 different versions of Google Apps. For our purposes there is the free one and the not free one.

With either version of Google apps you get:

• Your own domain name. (your email will end in "@yourdomainname.com" in stead of "@yahoo" or "@gmail".
  
• You get your very own home page. This can be decorated with an interesting array of gadgets and gizmos. Those are a different discussion however. Basically this interface allows you to navigate through the other Google and web services.
• Gmail of course. Again, it will be your very own domain name.
• A calendar system. You get this with Gmail as well.
  
• Docs. Again, you get this with regular Gmail.
• The ability to have multiple people with the same domain name. "bob@soandso.com", sally@soandso.com".
• The ability to share and collaborate on any of the above tools.

What does the premium addition of Google Apps have that regular Google Apps Doesn't? Well, that could very well be another post to, but basically it is how many people you can bring with you, how secure your email is, and how much storage you get.

There it is, the little snack and the big snack.

What is Gmail?

What is Gmail?

Gmail is, in short, Google Email.

Gmail as an email system brings all that Google has to offer as far as convenience and productivity are concerned. Packaged with it is an impressive array of other services: chat, video chat, sms text messaging, calander, documents, reader, ect.

Gmail, in and of itself, is a powerful tool. A built in spam blocker sets the standard for the internet; the dependibility of the search function is second to few; and the massive amount of archived space allows for all messages to be saved. Moreover, it is a snap to set up on a Blackberry.

All in all, Google does a good job on this project. More features are added constantly, and the intergration with the other google systems is nearly seemless. Try www.gmail.com if your curious.