Google announced yesterday that it is merging its Apps platform to push businesses into their premium version. Current organizations using the free version will not be affected. Details listed below.

“Starting today for all new customers:

• Individuals wishing to use Google’s web apps like Gmail and Google Drive should create a free personal Google Account, which provides a seamless experience across all of our web services on any device.
• For Businesses, instead of two versions, there will be one. Companies of all sizes will sign up for our premium version, Google Apps for Business, which includes 24/7 phone support for any issue, a 25GB inbox, and a 99.9% uptime guarantee with no scheduled downtime. Pricing is still $50 per user, per year.

Please note this change has no impact on our existing customers, including those using the free version.”

Ars Technica’s Sean Gallagher published an article today that takes a look into the expenses of recent US Election. A key point was that Obama treated the campaign as a company and hired the talent needed to do the tasks whereas Romney outsourced much of the work to other organizations. The flexibility of having the talent in-house gave the Obama campaign an edge. Overall, a great article worth the read. Also, you can see a list of some of the services they used during the campaign. I’ve used some of the same services that Obama’s campaign used. How cool is that?

http://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2012/11/how-team-obamas-tech-efficiency-left-romney-it-in-dust/

Google posted an announcement on it’s Gmail blog today detailing it’s latest change to the Gmail web application. The popular email platform has made things slightly more efficient by reducing the compose window to a smaller portion of the screen (see image).

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