Brisbane company snaps up Google Apps

brisbanetimes: 06/06/2008
By Scott Casey

Devnet announced last week it had secured the rights to licence the Google Apps application suite to businesses across Australia.

Google Apps is the latest cutting edge application released by the king of search. It includes email, voice communication, spreadsheets, presentation software, word processing and security software.

The suite also offers businesses their own Australian ".com.au" website.

"All your email for the company can go through this service, you can use it all online and there is also an offline capability," Devnet CEO Craig Deveson said.

Google Apps could also be helpful to business owners that are frequently away from their offices or even don't have an office such as trades people, salesmen or company representatives.

"It's great for tradesmen, as you can access this from a Blackberry or an iPhone, so the tools are very accessible via them," Mr Deveson said.

"If I read and email on my Blackberry, or add a meeting on my Google calendar, it is automatically synched with my Google mail system back in the cloud."

Mr Deveson said he did not believe Google Apps would provide direct competition to market heavyweight Microsoft.

"Power users will still use Microsoft Word or Powerpoint, but there are a number of instances where you might not be using Microsoft for collaboration and email," he said.

"You don't have to go and buy a copy of Microsoft Office - if you have 10 employees, you might (purchase) one or two copies of Office and ... give the other eight (employees) Google Apps."

Microsoft is currently working on a new system based on the cloud computing concept.