Google Apps Premier Edition Released

Google released its Apps Premier Edition yesterday. It includes integrated GMail and calendaring for your business or education. It is great to see a heavyweight competitor to Microsoft in this space, especially one with something compelling to offer, and a software-as-a-service approach.

I think it only makes sense for colleges and universities to outsource generic services like email. They are really a utility that should be handled higher up the stack. Sure, there are concerns about having someone else be stewards of our data. But frankly, I think Google has a much better security infrastructure than we do around here. Hell, they even talk about "armed personnel":

Data security

Your proprietary data is protected by security measures that include biometric devices and armed personnel, special-purpose equipment and services that only expose the minimal required access points to serve their function, dispersed data in proprietary formats and redundant storage that ensures the availability of your data.

Don't think we can provide that around here at L&C...