For almost all of my clients, and my own personal domain, I setup Google to manage all my e-mail. For the last number of years they have offered up to ten free accounts for Google Apps to be hosted on your domain. I’ve probably setup over 50 people with this setup and brought them the joy of Google and their brilliant web apps to workflow and business life.
As of today, as an official Google Apps Reseller, we were notified that they would no longer be offering the free version of Google Apps. I don’t even recall getting a warning about this.
Starting today, we’re no longer accepting new signups for the free version of Google Apps, and the option to switch to this version will no longer be available after 30 days.
It’s no longer available when you go to the site to sign up and in their Help Desk it is confirmed.
Maybe there wasn’t enough folks utilizing this amazing free tool. All I know is that it will be missed and it will be a lot more difficult to give my clients access to amazing customized e-mail services since even the smallest business owners have to pay for it. Bad move Google.
You’re right, this is indeed a truly bad move. Shame on you, Google.