Businesses already using free Google Apps unaffected.
Google has stopped selling Google Apps Standard edition which was free for businesses up to 10 users. Businesses signing up to Google Apps received a 30-day trial of the paid version Google Apps for Business and were then given the option of closing the account or paying US$50 per user per year.
Businesses already using the Standard edition before last Thursday would continue to use it for free unless they exceeded the maximum number of users. Google had gradually tightened the requirements for the Standard edition, first reducing the maximum number of users from 50 to 10 in April last year before pulling the plug without warning in December.
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“Starting today, we’re no longer accepting new sign-ups for the basic version of Google Apps, and the option to switch to this version will no longer be available in 30 days,” wrote Clay Bavor, director of Google Apps in a brief email to customers.
The decision to only offer 30-day free trials brought the cloud productivity platform in line with its main rival, Microsoft Office 365.
The Standard edition was a limited version of Google Apps for Business. It missed out on some application features such as Google Groups and Google Video, each user had a 7GB mailbox rather than 25GB, and there was no 24×7 phone support or paid compensation for downtime. See What is the difference between the free and paid versions of Google Apps? for more details.
Google recommended individuals wanting free tools to use Google’s separate web apps for consumers such as email application Gmail, online file storage and collaboration platform Google Drive. Although most of Google’s applications were available for free they were less suited for business users. For example, Gmail users could only use name@gmail.com email addresses while name@business.com email addresses were restricted to Google Apps.