Do you want simple, powerful communication and collaboration tools for your organization without the usual problems and cost?

If your answer is “Yes” then you should immediately check Google Apps–Google’s suite of hosted services for communication and collaboration–to make it easier for local businesses, educational institutions and organizations of all sizes to share information and improve their productivity.

Communicate :

With this powerful tool you may give your users Gmail, Google Calendar and Google Talk accounts that use your own custom domain, helping them to stay connected and work together more effectively.

This is a great opportunity for small business owners. Because if you don’t have enough technical knowledge about how to install such applications in your website, you will hire a web designer or coder do that for you. This will cost you a lot, where Google Apps is free of charge for the basic package.

Collaborate and Publish :

Google Docs lets users share files and collaborate in real-time. The Start Page is the first place your users will look to preview their inboxes and calendars, access your essential content, and search the web. Google Docs now includes presentations.

As PowerPoint does, Google’s presentation software enables users to create a series of slides with a mixture of text and graphics on each. Google’s software suite already included word processing, spreadsheet and calendar management programs.

The good news is that hosting is done by Google. No need to buy a server or software. You can get up and running quickly, even if you don’t have an IT staff, and if you don’t have an internet domain yet, Google Apps can help you register one when you sign up.

How Google Apps can benefit your small business:

With Google Apps, you can give your employees powerful communication and collaboration tools that will help bring their productivity to the next level. Google Apps includes email with professional addresses like jsmith@your-company.com and up to 10 gigabytes of storage per account. And publishing tools make it easier to deliver important information to employees and customers alike.

Setup Steps For Google Apps:
1. Sign up and sign in

From www.google.com/a, click ‘Get Started’ and sign up for the edition that’s right for you to access to the control panel.

2. Verify domain ownership

Confirm that you own the domain you signed up with to activate Google Apps.

3. Manage user accounts

From the control panel, create as many user accounts as your organization needs.

4. Activate email

Configure your domain’s Mail Exchange (MX) records to activate email delivery.

5. Help your users get started

Now that you’ve created your user accounts and activated your services, it’s time to help your users start using Google Apps.

6. More configuration options

Google Apps lets you easily modify a variety of settings that apply to your entire organization.

Google Apps Premiere Edition consists of a word processor, spreadsheet maker, email with 10GB online storage, calendar and the Google Talk instant messaging and internet telephony client. Google will allow these services to be delivered from a central portal adapted to include the company’s branding. GAPE will cost US$50 a year for each user. Google Apps also comes with a free edition with limited service capability. You may compare editions here.

Depending on the size of your small business, you may pick the edition that is convenient for you. For small companies which have 2-3 users may start with the basic free edition. There are some downsides of the free edition, however there is no need to pay $50 per user for such a small company. I believe such an investment will be justified if your company have 5+ employees who are located in different cities, districts, or mobile during the day.