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Google Apps stops accepting free sign-ups

googleenterprise.blogspot.com

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Re: Google Apps stops accepting free sign-ups

#391

Post by Karunamon »

ladzoppelin wrote: post #251
Karunamon wrote: post #200

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Dicking us over" Really ? * really ? * Choosing to stop offering a free service while allowing people who already have it to keep it is dicking you over?

Free? That's being being pretty disingenuous considering Google is an Advertising/Tracking company with the number one search engine in the world. No one uses any Google service or app for free so technically it was not a "free service". They should be upfront with people in the beginning if they don't want people bitching.

>Free? That's being being pretty disingenuous

Yes, free. As in 0$. The same way that Facebook is free and that most startup web services have a free usage tier. Knock it off with the pedantry.

Re: Google Apps stops accepting free sign-ups

#392

Post by netfire »

Seems like a strange move by Google. Most small or starting businesses don't need a 25GB inbox (at least not every user) or 24/7 tech support. Why create the barrier to entry? Now people with businesses will be more likely to use personal Google accounts for business or look for alternative services. Why not just create a premium business account option that gives you this level of storage and support if you need it, instead of trying to convince your users that they need it, when most of them are happy without it.

Personally, I liked the direction Google was heading with their Google Drive product. You get up to 5GB for free and then pay for more if you need it. Makes me wonder how Google might try to monetize other products like Google+ once they have a substantial following.

Re: Google Apps stops accepting free sign-ups

#393

Post by jimwalsh »

sturadnidge wrote: post #372
VikingCoder wrote: post #370

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I just wanted an email for my domain and that's not worth 50 bucks a year. How much do you make per hour? How many hours do you expect to spend per year maintaining your own email system? How much would you pay to stop one hacker, one time, from reading your private email? Are you going to bother to set up two-factor authentication, or just wing it? For a lot of people, $50 a year would make total sense.

This times a thousand. For $50 a year I can have Google's security, spam filtering, and 2 factor auth. Totally understand someone running their own mail server due to privacy concerns, but that's a different argument to "not worth $50 a year".

It's worth $50/year per domain. But their pricing is $50/account/year. That pricing is insane.

Re: Google Apps stops accepting free sign-ups

#394

Post by nosecreek »

froo wrote: post #159
therealarmen wrote: post #5

Please note this change has no impact on our existing customers, including those using the free version. I give it six months before they start strong-arming free users into paid accounts.

I'm curious what happens with the people that are in limbo - that is still in their 30 day trial period and are unable to downgrade to a free version because of that.

Me too. I just set up a client's email with Google Apps a couple of days ago intending to use the free version. Its going to be a big headache if they can't use the free offering.

Re: Google Apps stops accepting free sign-ups

#395

Post by superuser2 »

bad_user wrote: post #295
superuser2 wrote: post #149

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>I'll just set up my own email system at this point, call it a learning experience and never be exposed to the rest of whatever was in Google Apps. And? Free users threatening to leave are hilarious (even better when they campaign against ad targeting and AdBlock everything). Google's decision pretty clearly signals that users like you aren't worth it to the company any more than Google Apps are worth $50 to you. Don…

I use Google Apps because I want to use GMail, but with my own domain. That's it. I'm not an enterprise. I don't need more support than regular GMail users. I don't have special needs, like managing what services are allowed. I just don't want a @gmail.com address. I see people here defending this move, but think of how services like Google+ make mandatory an email address that's managed by Google. That email address…

Just because you have to have a GMail account to log in to Google services doesn't mean you have to use it as your primary email address.

Plain-old GMail is no different (from a UX perspective) from being the sole user on a Google Apps account, so admins haven't really lost anything in terms of being able to evaluate Google Apps. There's nothing particularly interesting in the free version's admin panel.

Re: Google Apps stops accepting free sign-ups

#396

Post by jimwalsh »

rhizome wrote: post #201
indiecore wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

by cutting off free users they just opened themselves to getting undercut by a smaller company that can offer fewer, cheaper, targeted options. I just wanted an email for my domain and that's not worth 50 bucks a year. I'll just set up my own email system at this point, call it a learning experience and never be exposed to the rest of whatever was in Google Apps.

$50/yr is less than $5/mo, what is the convenience of email hosting worth to you?

Plenty of services offer unlimited accounts for $5/month. The amount of services offered in a Google Apps account needs to stop getting minimized to just email in this thread as it skews comparisons.

Re: Google Apps stops accepting free sign-ups

#397

Post by 4lun »

alexenko wrote: post #355
4lun wrote: post #309

Found a workaround to still sign up for the standard plan, modify the following URL to include your domain: http://www.google.com/a/cpanel/standard/selectDomain?existin... Likely to be disabled very soon.

Instead of giving you a free plan, it gives you a 30 day trial :(

Yep you're right, they just haven't gotten around to updating the copy on the form.

Re: Google Apps stops accepting free sign-ups

#398

Post by slovette »

meaty wrote: post #330
fusiongyro wrote: post #292

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I do this. It's not easy, but it's not as bad as most of the comments here would lead you to believe. If you have the wherewithal to run things on a server it's definitely within reach, albeit probably not a cost-effective way to spend your time. Let me make a few recommendations. I'm not a sysadmin by trade but I know a few things you can do that will improve your lot in life running mail. - Postfix and Dovecot. The…

+1 for this. I've run my own mail server for 15 years, since I got my first permanent connection. I host on the end of it as I have a large distrust of "the cloud". It is cost effective for me as it has increased my merchantable skill portfolio. I've ended up designing some mail systems (50k+ users) for some large ISPs in the past thanks to my accumulated knowledge. Debian is probably the easiest to get off the groun…

Quick dumb question about the RASPBERRY-PI: What do y'all do with the board itself as far as a case? I mean, are most of you just letting it sit on a self or something (it's so dang small anyway)? I've seen a few plastic cases floating around and they seem like the only option really (outside of just building a simple wood box and screwing it to the wall...

Re: Google Apps stops accepting free sign-ups

#399

Post by AngryParsley »

meaty wrote: post #330
fusiongyro wrote: post #292

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I do this. It's not easy, but it's not as bad as most of the comments here would lead you to believe. If you have the wherewithal to run things on a server it's definitely within reach, albeit probably not a cost-effective way to spend your time. Let me make a few recommendations. I'm not a sysadmin by trade but I know a few things you can do that will improve your lot in life running mail. - Postfix and Dovecot. The…

+1 for this. I've run my own mail server for 15 years, since I got my first permanent connection. I host on the end of it as I have a large distrust of "the cloud". It is cost effective for me as it has increased my merchantable skill portfolio. I've ended up designing some mail systems (50k+ users) for some large ISPs in the past thanks to my accumulated knowledge. Debian is probably the easiest to get off the groun…

32GB of storage satisfies 18 users? That surprises me. I have 5GB in one mailbox and I'm not much of an e-mail hoarder. Also, what do you do for backups? Do you have offsite backups? How do you search your email? How do you filter spam? What about calendars, shared contacts, and internal document storage? Do you have multi-factor auth and application-specific passwords? Google Apps has a ton of features and it's reliable. Not to mention, it's cheap. Unless your time is worth very little, setting-up and maintaining your own mail server is going to cost a lot more.

People use e-mail constantly. It's important. $50 per person per year isn't a blip on the radar. Do you know how much money you'll lose if your 18 users can't access their mail for an hour? Now consider how much time they'll spend setting up their own mail clients instead of using Gmail. Think of the increased time and frustration waiting for searches to finish. Think of the extra time they'll spend deleting spam. You're paying a lot more than $40-50 for that mail server, but the real cost is obscured from you.

It's a no-brainer: skimping on email hosting is simply not worthwhile.

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