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Google started life as a search engine but these days the Google folks are into all sorts of things; email, calendar, web browser, mobile phone operating system, web statistics, docs, groups, sites, video, they own You Tube, My Sites but these last two are another story. Google dominate the search engine market, and via this have created a world renowned brand and a revenue stream via their phenomenal ad words advertising system. Bill Gates famously said that his one big mistake was to underestimate the web search engine market!

Google is now in direct competition to Microsoft and Microsoft is playing catch-up!! Anyway I digress, what can Google apps do for you? Email; If you currently use an Exchange server or just a POP3 connection you could switch to Google mail, your web company can make a change (your MX record) and Google can handle the backend of your email functions, externally nothing much changes, it could even improve, with good spam control and a high specification web mail interface Google have created a brilliant email system Docs; They have a Word processor, a spreadsheet, presentation tool and a PDF creator, and all your docs are available from any computer with internet access, this is fantastic if you have remote workers, and also removes your need for disk storage and quite possible a server!

Calendar; The Google calendar is another great tool, if you run fitness classes, a community centre or run courses for example, you can add the calendar to your website quite cheaply and suddenly you have a content managed area on your website that you can administer to your hearts content.

Statistics; Google Analytics is a hugely popular tool as it gives the website owner access to great amounts of statistical data, though largely based around searchers who use Google – what search phrases are used to find you, what web pages on your site are most popular, how many visitors do you get, this plus loads more information is provided.

Videos; Google offer a secure system for uploading and sharing confidential videos, so you don’t need the storage space. Groups; This links into all of the above and gives an easy way to decide who can access what. Of course the one great thing about all of these Google Apps is the cost – they’re all free!