Google just yesterday announced it is giving the axe to the free edition of Google Apps (i.e. the Standard Edition). So from now on Google Apps only has a single version: the paid one. This is not exactly news to those of us who do business in this space. Google Apps free edition has gone from “unlimited users” to 100, to 50, to 10 and now, well.. to 0.
This is bad news for small businesses who are just getting started and who would rather use their limited amount of funds somewhere else. Although, software services are not expensive these days (for the most part), every single dollar counts when you’re getting started.
That’s the reason why we at Zoho remain committed to helping the small guys – new businesses just launching, the ones who are not able to commit just yet. That’s also reflected in our pricing structure – we’ve never required a yearly contract for any of our services. Sure, we’ll give you a nice discount if you do, but you can choose to subscribe on a monthly basis.
For those users looking for a great web mail service, and who want to get started for free, we’ll continue to offer our free plan for hosted mail - that is not going away anytime soon. We want to continue servicing Small Businesses.
It’s not just email – the vast majority of Zoho services are free for our growing customers – from attracting more customers with Zoho CRM to having a mobile-enabled website presence, for free to online invoicing so you can get your money faster to… well, pretty much everything Zoho offers.
And of course, with over 14 Apps, we continue to be one of the leading vendors in the Google Apps Marketplace. So whether you start with Zoho Mail or you start with Google Apps, you still have access to all the rest Zoho has to offer.
Thats why over 7 million people have chosen Zoho to, as we say, “Work Online”!
Rodrigo
Seems kinda standard that a business sucks us in and then lowers the boom. Tends to be the norm now.