Is Google Apps for Businesses flying below Microsoft's radar?

At Web 2.0 Expo in April 2007, Google CEO Eric Schmidt said that he didn't see Google's office offering (Google Apps) as competition to Microsoft. But, upon closer examination of the special private domain version of Google Apps that Google makes available to businesses, there's a suprising amount of connective tissue and administrative options that everyday users of Google don't see. Here are some screeshots to prove our point.For David Berlind's write-up on the special business context of Google Apps, see his post in ZDNet's TestBed blog.

By Matt Conner, Contributor on April 23, 2007

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Once a company registers for one of the services that Google offers to businesses (and other organizations), Google sets up a private domain context of Google Apps for that company. Pictured here is a partial screen shot of the control panel you 'd see if you did this for your business.

For David Berlind's write-up on the special business context of Google Apps, see his post in ZDNet's TestBed blog.

2 of 18 Matt Conner/ZDNET

For David Berlind's write-up on the special business context of Google Apps, see his post in ZDNet's TestBed blog.

3 of 18 Matt Conner/ZDNET

For David Berlind's write-up on the special business context of Google Apps, see his post in ZDNet's TestBed blog.

4 of 18 Matt Conner/ZDNET

For David Berlind's write-up on the special business context of Google Apps, see his post in ZDNet's TestBed blog.

5 of 18 Matt Conner/ZDNET

For David Berlind's write-up on the special business context of Google Apps, see his post in ZDNet's TestBed blog.

6 of 18 Matt Conner/ZDNET

For users of a private Google Apps domain, an administrator can lock an area of the Start Page so that users can change it the way they can change a normal personalized home page on Google.

For David Berlind's write-up on the special business context of Google Apps, see his post in ZDNet's TestBed blog.

7 of 18 Matt Conner/ZDNET

For David Berlind's write-up on the special business context of Google Apps, see his post in ZDNet's TestBed blog.

8 of 18 Matt Conner/ZDNET

For David Berlind's write-up on the special business context of Google Apps, see his post in ZDNet's TestBed blog.

9 of 18 Matt Conner/ZDNET

For David Berlind's write-up on the special business context of Google Apps, see his post in ZDNet's TestBed blog.

10 of 18 Matt Conner/ZDNET

Administrators are given a single Start Page URL that can be issued to all users. Provided the e-mail and calendar components have been programmed onto the start page, users will see their own inbox and calendar.

For David Berlind's write-up on the special business context of Google Apps, see his post in ZDNet's TestBed blog.

11 of 18 Matt Conner/ZDNET

When running a private Google Apps domain, an administrator can replace Google's logo with a company logo and it will show up on the Start Page (see next image) and the Web interfaces to a users inbox and calendar.

For David Berlind's write-up on the special business context of Google Apps, see his post in ZDNet's TestBed blog.

12 of 18 Matt Conner/ZDNET

In true portal fashion, we tried to add a custom section with links to our shared Google Docs repository (see middle), but the we couldn't get the links to work. This is one of those areas where Google needs to improve the overall offering before it will be ready for primetime.

(For David Berlind's write-up on the special business context of Google Apps, see his post in ZDNet's TestBed blog.

13 of 18 Matt Conner/ZDNET

For David Berlind's write-up on the special business context of Google Apps, see his post in ZDNet's TestBed blog.

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For David Berlind's write-up on the special business context of Google Apps, see his post in ZDNet's TestBed blog.

15 of 18 Matt Conner/ZDNET

For David Berlind's write-up on the special business context of Google Apps, see his post in ZDNet's TestBed blog.

16 of 18 Matt Conner/ZDNET

For David Berlind's write-up on the special business context of Google Apps, see his post in ZDNet's TestBed blog.

17 of 18 Matt Conner/ZDNET

For David Berlind's write-up on the special business context of Google Apps, see his post in ZDNet's TestBed blog.

18 of 18 Matt Conner/ZDNET

For private Google App domains, not only will Google help you author and publish HTML pages, it will even host them at no charge under your domain name (as opposed to what regular users get which is http://yourname.googlepages.com).

For David Berlind's write-up on the special business context of Google Apps, see his post in ZDNet's TestBed blog.

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