Google Apps Team Edition

February 7, 2008

Google logo

Google today announced Google Apps Team Edition as the simplest and fastest way for groups of employees and students to collaborate within an organisation using Google Apps. Once users verify their business or school email address, they can instantly share documents and calendars securely without burdening IT for support. Team Edition can easily be switched to Google Apps Standard, Premier or Education Edition for communications and collaboration across the entire company.

“More than half a million businesses have already chosen Google Apps to collaborate and share information across the organisation,” said Dave Girouard, vice president and general manager of enterprise, Google. “With Team Edition, groups of individuals at school or work can just as easily get the benefits of Google Apps by simply signing up online.”

Once a user has signed up for Team Edition using a verified business or school email address, they can instantly invite others to join, or easily identify people within their organisation already using Google Apps, to collaborate and share documents. Together, teams of people within a business or school can:

Work on the same document, spreadsheet or presentation (instead of emailing changes in multiple copies of the same attachment)
Publish documents and calendars for the team to view and update
Access information from any computer, even mobile phones with Google Apps, there is no hardware or software to buy, install or maintain, so businesses can quickly begin to collaborate with minimal up front investment. Google Apps Team Edition currently includes:
Google Docs to create and share documents, spreadsheets and presentations
Google Calendar to arrange meetings, set schedules, and publish event information
Google Talk for instant messaging and free PC-to-PC voice calls
Start Page where users can access their Google Apps services and customised content

“Our business has been tripling every year, and we needed better tools to help us keep up with the growth. So we started using Google Docs and Google Calendar with our personal accounts to do things like coordinate customer visits and work together on documents, even when we’re travelling separately,” said Paul Laurie, co-founder of Walking Tree Travel (walkingtree.org), an organisation that leads educational trips abroad for high school students. “We’re thrilled Google Apps Team Edition now allows everyone at Walking Tree to be connected automatically.”

Google Apps Team Edition lets colleagues and departments at work, or study groups at school, immediately begin sharing information within a domain. In addition, the Team Edition can easily be upgraded to Google Apps Standard, Premier or Education Edition for full administrative control, such as the ability to set default sharing options, decide which applications are available on the network, or determine who has access. When organisations switch to Google Apps Premier Edition, they also receive business integration capabilities and 24/7 support, including phone support for critical issues.