Google Apps for Your Domain launching this week ; ads in the workplace?

Google appears poised to land another punch against Microsoft this week with the impending release of “Google Apps for Your Domain”. The question is: will this be yet another jab or will Google land a solid cross to the face of Microsoft? The expected Google offering isn’t necessarily geared for the single user; the software service package is aimed more squarely at small companies with Google providing hosted services for mail, IM, web pages and calendar functionality.

As a mobile computing individual, I’m still not quite sold on the services aspect simply because I like to have control over my personal and important data; plus I require 100% availability, not just 99.999%. Even with my hosted Exchange service, I maintain my own backups and storage files….just in case. If I were a small business owner, however, I might consider the Google suite, which is expected to expand with Writely and Google Spreadsheets later this year. The services will contain (you guessed it) advertisements to help support and offset any costs, plus it will add more money into to Google coffers.

We’ve asked before, but I like to ask this question every time I see a shift in the software services climate: are you more inclined to run software or services for your computing needs? How do you feel about ads in your main productivity services; not just at a personal computing level, but for your business or the business of your employer? Are you comfy with your data on a third party server, is that a “no-no” or is there a time and place for it?

UPDATE: It's official now as Google just put out a Press Release with the details.

-kct

Comments

[Josh Einstein]

I will definitely never use my web browser for tasks like this. I've got a dual core processor, 2gb of ram, a huge hard disk, and fast video card. Why would I relegate this powerful machine to what amounts to the modern equivalent of a dumb terminal?

I am not opposed to data storage services, but I think Microsoft has the right idea with Sharepoint. SharePoint lets me decide if *I* want to host the data or if I want to trust someone else to do it.

One thing SharePoint is lacking which I think they are addressing in 2007 is offline synchronization. I need the ability to unplug and take my stuff with me, yet I appreciate the confidence of knowing an always up-to-date copy is back at the office on the server and available to me over the web if needed in a pinch. However, with th Tablet PC, I rarely find myself in a situation where I need to use someone else's computer to access my data on the web.