Thoughts on the Google Apps Marketplace

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Google recently launched the Google Apps Marketplace which is a strong shot across their bow of office suite in the cloud offerings to small business, large businesses and schools. This is a big deal.

With more businesses switching email providers to Google Apps off of managed or hosted Exchange servers costs go down. With a limited selection of productivity apps available many IT groups cited their current solutions as a better choice. With the explosion of Google Apps Marketplace you now have a Darwinian process occurring of the best apps bubbling to the top.

Simple installs and running in the cloud mean that you do not have to worry about service, support, or other headaches. Well, support may be an issue as you have the learning curve involved, but aside from the basics, it is limited.

Just after launch there are some amazing apps, most free, or paid after a certain number of users;

Project management
Time tracking and invoice management
Sales and Marketing (think analytics and email marketing integration from your favorite provider)
Productivity suites
Content connectors (wiki, blogging, company Intranet)

These are only a few of what I found on the list that may be helpful. As each has its own pricing structure mileage may vary but the options are there.

Full cloud hosted apps are here, and integration with where you spend a majority of your time (email) is a great place to get them deployed.

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