Why the Connected Generation Prefers G Suite over Other Apps

G Suite, formerly known as Google Apps for Work, is a cloud computing platform, integrated with productivity and collaboration tools developed by Google. The product was officially launched on August 28, 2006. It comprises of Gmail, Hangouts, Calendar, and Google+ for communication; Drive for storage; Docs, Sheets, Slides, Forms, and Sites for collaboration; and, depending on the business plan, an Admin Panel and Vault for managing users and the services. Let me recapitulate a bit of historical information about this extremely simple yet powerful application.

Birth of Gmail

Gmail started as a project by Google developer Paul Buchheit. While working on a personal email software project as a college student, Paul had already explored the idea of webmail in the 1990s, before the launch of Hotmail by Sabeer Bhatia. At the time when Gmail was being built, existing email services such as Yahoo! Mail and Hotmail provided extremely slow web interfaces written in static HTML. Paul’s objective was to find a workaround to overcome the limitations of HTML by using dynamic JavaScript code, an approach that trended to become popular as AJAX (Asynchronous JavaScript and XML).

Enhanced Search Facility and user-friendly GUI in Gmail

At the same time, Google as an organization was expanding and the high volume of internal email at Google initiated a huge demand for search facility. Soon a search bar was developed and integrated with Gmail. The search bar can also search contacts, files stored in Google Drive, events from Google Calendar, and Google Sites.

The Gmail user interface initially differed from other webmail solutions like Yahoo, Hotmail, rediffmail, etc., with its focus on search and conversation threading of emails, grouping several messages between two or more persons onto a single page, a practice that was later replicated by its competitors. Gmail's user interface designer, Kevin Fox, intended to give users a feel as if they were always on one page and just updating items on that page, rather than having to navigate to other places.

Gmail's interface also makes use of 'labels'  that replace the conventional folders and provide a more flexible method of organizing emails, filters for automatically organizing, deleting or forwarding incoming emails to other addresses, and importance-flags for automatically flagging messages as 'important'.

Increased Storage as a Bumper Offer

As Paul and team incorporated Advanced Search capabilities with Gmail, it triggered discussion and action on providing a substantial amount of storage space, which consequently led to the possibility of allowing users to store their emails forever. I remember, those days, having a daily recurring task of thirty minutes in my calendar reserved for organizing and deleting mails simply to manage mails within the storage limit.

After considering alternatives, Google finally settled upon 1 GB of space per mailbox, a significantly massive amount as compared with the offerings from other mail providers, a figure that was considered more of an incredible blessing by many like me, 2 to 4 MB being the standard storage per mailbox at the time. Gradually the Gmail team size at Google kept increasing, making the application robust and enriched with advanced features. Internally Google employees kept using Gmail for a number of years, refining the capabilities.  

Launch of Gmail and Evolution of Google Apps

Finally on April 1, 2004, Gmail was launched for public use with a simple yet highly impressive, user friendly interface. Initially, many thought of it as an April Fool’s Day joke published by the tech giant, which soon turned out to be an extremely useful and very real application. Google declared that Gmail was in beta-testing phase and strategized it as an invitation-only use. Whoever received an invitation, could invite upto three users. Being one of the early users and a proud beta-tester, I was privileged enough to get my Gmail account username as my first name. On 1st April 2005, the first anniversary of Gmail, Google doubled the storage to 2GB per mailbox. From then on, Gmail for consumer use kept on improving and in May 2013, per mailbox size was increased to 15 GB.

In early 2006, Google launched a Gmail for Your Domain test at San Jose City College, hosting Gmail accounts with the college’s domain addresses and admin tools for account management. Later, on August 28, 2006, Google launched Google Apps for Your Domain, a set of apps for organizations containing the first Admin console for managing user accounts and security settings, for any number of users. Available for free as a beta service, it included Gmail, Google Talk, Google Calendar, and the Google Page Creator, which was later replaced with Google Sites.

Winning over Young and Growing Minds

Google released a version for schools, colleges and institutions, known as Google Apps for Education, on October 10, 2006, which is to-date free for qualifying institutions. It was engineered for integration with existing mail solution and user account directory systems of large educational institutions, with tools for enabling migration of these to Google Apps. Many global institutions delivering professional education,  including several universities like University of Massachusetts and B-schools like IIM Kolkata were in the league of early adopters of the application. As students of these renowned institutions got familiar with the application, they got accustomed to the interface. So when they stepped into the professional world, it was but natural for them to expect Google Apps as organizational platform for communication and collaboration. In case the parent organizations used other applications, once these B-school grads gained authoritative positions, their pro-Gmail mindset helped in getting the application implemented in the organizations they worked for.

Google’s well-planned Strategy on Payment Model and Increased Storage

Google released the first paid edition in February 2007, called Google Apps Premier Edition, which included the integration tools that had been introduced with Google Apps for Education. Google Apps accounts now fully supported Google Docs, which had been experimental until that time. The paid plan offered 10 GB per user, SLA (Service Level Agreements) for 99.9% guaranteed uptime, and 24x7 support for critical issues. Only in Annual mode of payment Billing was offered then, at $50 per mailbox. Google Apps for Your Domain (the free edition) was renamed to Google Apps Standard Edition.

Google decided to gradually move away from providing Google Apps for free to enterprises, without stopping abruptly. This decision was taken around late 2007. When the Premier Edition was introduced, signups for the free Standard Edition were limited to 200 users, and which gradually reduced to 100 users, special requests could be raised, subject to Google’s discretion. At the same time e-mail storage for free Google Accounts and Google Apps Standard Edition was increased from 2.0 GB to 7.5 GB per mailbox, while Google Apps Premier mailbox size got r&ed up from 10 GB to 25 GB. During this time, Google made it difficult for users to get the free Standard Edition in search result. Instead, users were directed to the paid account with a free trial as if the free offering didn't exist. You had to know exactly what you were looking for to find and sign up for the free Standard Edition. By early 2009, the user limit was reduced to 50 for the free Standard Edition, and special requests were no more allowed. In November 2010, Google announced new branding. Google Apps Premier Edition was renamed Google Apps for Business, while Standard Edition was to be called simply Google Apps. The next step in phasing out the free edition of Google Apps came in April 2011, when Google reduced the maximum user limit for new sign-ups down to just 10 (ten). At the same time, Google enabled monthly billing for the paid accounts, in addition to the annual plans.

In April 2012 all free account mailboxes were moved from 7.5 GB to 10 GB and Google Apps for Business mailboxes remained at 25 GB.

Introduction of Google Drive

In 2012 Google Drive was introduced, with 5 GB storage for all users, including free accounts. The Drive Storage was segregated from mailbox storage, e.g., a Google Apps for Business user would have 25 GB for mailbox, and an additional 5 GB for Google Drive, totalling 30 GB. In December 2012, Google finally ended new sign-ups for the free edition of Google Apps for businesses; the Education and Nonprofit offerings remain free, to this day, for qualified organizations.

Enhanced collaboration through Office Productivity Tools

Meanwhile Google Apps was providing collaboration through shared calendars, Google Docs, and domain e-mail hosted by Google with a GAL (Global Address List) of all users on the domain.

In May 2013, Gmail and Drive storage unification was announced that combined the storage quota into single 30 GB across Gmail, Drive and G+ photos for paid accounts. Similarly, for free accounts, the 10 GB mail quota was merged with the free 5 GB Drive, to make single 15 GB combined storage. The new shared general purpose unified storage, for internal use by your organization's users over the Internet with easy and intuitive file sharing, greatly enhanced the utility of Google Apps.

Google’s Strategy to capture SMEs (Small and Medium Enterprises) in India

Launch of INR pricing for Google Apps on May 22, 2013 was a well thought strategy motivating Google to slash down the cost price of the application to half so that it becomes readily affordable for SMEs in India. While Google Apps continued to cost $50 per license in Annual Plan and $5 per license in Monthly Plan, the INR pricing till date continues to be at Rs 1500 per license in Annual plan and Rs 150 per license in Monthly Plan.

Power Packed Show from Google Apps to G Suite

Google launched Google Apps Unlimited in June 2014, which was Google Apps for Business with unlimited storage for $10 per user per month (although if you had four or fewer users, each user got only 1 TB). To use Google Apps Unlimited with your company account, though, you had to pay the higher rate for all users in your company. You couldn't upgrade only some of them to save money.

In September 2014, Google renamed Google Apps for Business to Google Apps for Work.

In September 2016, Google rebranded Google Apps as G Suite. The purpose was to send out a clear message that this is an integrated enterprise system, a complete platform for users. Google Apps for Work was renamed G Suite Basic, and Google Apps Unlimited became G Suite Business, with no changes to the pricing, storage, or other account parameters. A new top-tier service was introduced for $25 per user per month, called G Suite Enterprise, offering high-end data confidentiality, data archiving, integrity, log analysis, and mobile device management capabilities.

Soon Google launched a new Team Drive feature in Business, Enterprise, and Education editions of G Suite. This allows a user to create a team and then set up a Drive that is owned by that team. It solves problems with the existing decentralized sharing model, where each user individually shares files but retains ownership of that file.

How the younger generation is Adopting the application

In 2017 Google is not only promoting the Cloud Platform, it has added the Cloud Search feature to paid G Suite Business and Enterprise accounts, enabling Google-powered searching across all content in your company's account (mail, calendar, and all documents). The younger generation, especially the millennials love the gradual inclusion of artificial intelligence in the application. Machine Learning and IoT (Internet of Things) are fast gaining demand. Features like instantly translating words in a photo, the ability to search for objects, places, and people in photos are ex&les. Also the many ways you must have probably noticed that Google already knows your need of the moment, such as which document you are likely to require in Google Docs, when you should schedule a meeting, where you are travelling, when you should leave and so on.