“To improve the experience of our customers, we now provide 24 x 7 phone support to small, medium, and large Google Apps for Business customers for all issues affecting the core services,” Google says on its blog. “Our customers may also receive support through our web-based support portal, online help forms, and online help center. All support cases are handled directly by trained Google Apps experts.”

Google Apps for Business was first introduced in 2007 to compete with traditional office suites, including Microsoft Office. A free version is limited to 10 users within the same domain and allows users to send a maximum of 500 emails per day per email account. Email attachments are limited to 25 megabytes or less. The business version (Google Apps for Business) features e-mail spam and malware filtering through Postini before it is delivered to a client's mail server, API’s for single sign-on, a 99.9 percent e-mail uptime guarantee, and now 24/7 telephone support, among other features.

U.S. based business and education customers can reach Google support at 877-355-5787, international customers can dial 1-404-978-9282. Photo: Public Domain

"Office 365 is the best of everything we know about productivity, all in a single cloud service," said Kurt DelBene, president of the Office Division at Microsoft. "With Office 365, your local bakery can get enterprise-caliber software and services for the first time, while a multinational pharmaceutical company can reduce costs and more easily stay current with the latest innovations. People can focus on their business, while we and our partners take care of the technology."

Office 365 works with the most popular browsers, smartphones and desktop applications, Microsoft says. Moving to the cloud with Office 365 means users don’t have to change the way they work. "For a small business, Office 365 is a perfect way to start," said Rob Nichols, chief technology officer of Allovus Design, a graphic design firm and member of Microsoft’s Customer Advisory Board for Office 365. "It has all the features we need, and we can come out of the gate with the same tools the big guys have - on day one."

Professionals and small business with fewer than 25 employees will pay about $6 per user per month, while pricing for enterprise customers ranges from $2 to $24. Office 365 for enterprises includes the option to get Microsoft Office Professional Plus desktop software on a pay-as-you-go basis. Microsoft offers the suite along with e-mail, voicemail, enterprise social networking, instant messaging, Web portals, extranets, voice-, video- and webconferencing, 24x7 phone support, and on-premises licenses for large organizations. The Redmond, Washington based company plans to include Microsoft Dynamics CRM Online later in 2011.

The cloud based offering will be rolled out next year and is currently in beta in 13 countries and regions around the world. Microsoft also plans to offer a version of Office 365 for education, giving students, faculty and school employees technology tailored specifically to their needs.

Photo: www.imagine-your-world.com