Google Apps Premier Edition Launches 261
prostoalex writes "Google Apps is adding a premium offering: a custom 10-GB Gmail box, Google Calendar, GTalk instant messenger, Writely, Google Pages, Google Custom home page iGoogle and Google SpreadSheets for $50 a year per employee. The NYTimes provides some details on competitive pricing: 'By comparison, businesses pay on average about $225 a person annually for Office and Exchange,... in addition to the costs of in-house management, customer support and hardware, according to the market research firm Gartner.' Boston.com quotes an analyst for Nucleus Research on Google's ease-of-use: '"What we see in the Google Apps is a real focus on making them easy to use and intuitive," she said. "And that's something that Microsoft has been unable to do in all of its years with Office."' But the same analyst is bearish on Google Apps' shortcomings relative to the mature Microsoft desktop products: 'Right now Google's going to give companies a better ability to negotiate with Microsoft.'"
Instant messenger? (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Instant messenger? (Score:4, Interesting)
*Yes, I know, GTalk does voice also
Re:Instant messenger? (Score:5, Insightful)
I was about to moderate this discussion, but I had to respond to you. Instant Messaging, despite rumors to the contrary, can actually be a very productive tool at work. My company uses Lotus Sametime, and I have found it to be a very useful way to get responses to quick questions. No, you cannot hold major discussions over Instant Messaging. And, if you work in a small (
IMHO, the productivity that is gained by Corporate IM easily outshines to potential pitfalls.
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Dammit. I put in the 'less than' sign and screwed up the HTML. I meant to say, an office of less than 100 people, Corporate IM is not a useful tool. But, if you co-worker is 300 miles away and you need them to jump on a conference call or you need them to answer a quick question, then corporate IM can be very helpful.
Re:Instant messenger? (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Instant messenger? (Score:4, Insightful)
1. All the members in the conversation *must* know how to touchtype (or at least write faaast).
2. All the members in the conversation *must* agree to write 1 paragraph with one idea per "message" I\n, hate\n, when\n, people\n, writes\n, one\n, word\n, and\n
It started as a "cool" experiment (to test the "new technology") but it was so helpful that we used it trough the remaining University time. This all was on 56k dialup, and yeah it was fast enough for us.
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Talk is cool because you can see the characters as they are typed, you can see just how badly some people type as they make typos and then try to correct them!
Re:Instant messenger? (Score:5, Funny)
I don't think that word means what you think it means.
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If you're looking for the state of the art today, take a look at the SubEthaEdit text editor for OS X. Basically, it is a text editor that can post a document on a LAN (autodiscovery via zeroconf) or on the internet if you know the hostname or IP and allow for collaborative editing. What is really nice is it has multiple, real time cursors so everyone can be typing at once with their own insertion point. It makes pair programming so much easier than hacked together solutions where giant chunks of text are s
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Because it takes FOREVER to write debug errors on the whiteboard.
(stoopid whiteboard with no cut-n-paste.)
Re:Instant messenger? (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Instant messenger? (Score:4, Insightful)
IM is way better than email for 90% of what people use email for.
when i worked on a helpdesk, we were all on the phone all the time, and we used AIM and an AIM chatroom to IM with eachother about stuff like what systems were up, what was down, that sort of thing. you can talk on the phone (well, listen to an idiot yammer) and answer other people's questions pretty easily that way. plus, you can have several conversations going at once which is way more efficient than a single phone conversation. it's also a great way to move files between people you know since most corporate email systems strip the most interesting of attachments without some sort of manipulation.
i would do personal stuff with it as well... IMing with my wife all day cuts down on the "how was your day/we never talk anymore" meme that cuts into precious evening game time... both mine and hers.
my only beef with IM is that even with clients that let you have several "presences" (jabber/trillian) there aren't many that let you talk to people while they are in an MMORPG. asheron's call had a third party plugin system called DeCAL that let you run many things, including an IRC and aim client ingame which created an allegiance chat channel before one was added to the game in addition to being reachable while in game... but to my knowlege there is no way to reach someone with a default install of a given game without being logged into the game as well.
it would be nice to be able to tell my little brother that he has a meat body somewhere outside of WOW that needs to eat dinner once in a while.
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It is hardly a time waster; IM has 'grown up' in a sense that it is no longer used just by the geek fringe and the younger generations. It is a very useful tool.
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obvious flaw? (Score:4, Interesting)
Or am I the only one to have thought of that?
Tom
Re:obvious flaw? (Score:5, Insightful)
In the en it is a mixed bag. Somethings will require local data. Other times i really miss having everything on the network. Finding a balance between the two will be the best bet.
Besides a corporation or government who gives their employees data to take home is just asking for trouble. How much of ten's of thousands of customer personal data has been lost your way?
I just am tired of waiting for corporations to stand up and upgrade their networks to even present standards. the USA doesn't even have 3G yet Japan and europe are working on going beyond that.
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OpenOffice is free. Use that for your presentations/etc if you're worried about cost.
Tom
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Docs is horribly uninteresting. FCKEditor [fckeditor.net] has more formatting options than Google Docs. It's not an office competitor in my mind.
Spreadsheets is a bit better, but 2G is plenty of email space for my small business.
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I looked at it, but for $50/account it is a lot of money ($1200 vs free) and I can't upgrade only select accounts.
If it were $50/10GB I would get it, because I only have 2 accounts that need more space.
Also, does anybody know if it lifts the tiny 10MB email limit? If I could send 50MB files it would be a lot more valuable.
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Re:obvious flaw? (Score:5, Interesting)
In a large office with hundreds of users, having all that traffic heading out through the wan interface would be prohibitive, it would be much easier to only have the few off-site workers traffic heading in through the wan interface instead.
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I don't think this is their target market (at least initially). The Google apps seem best suited for smaller offices that don't want to fuss with file server/exchange/etc and are running a dozen or two PCs with shared folders all plugged into a router on as little as a cable modem. This will probably suit their needs nicely.
For larger clients, Google's exposing APIs, so it's only a matter of time till we start seeing Google Apps --> OOo connectors and sync ap
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Yes, as as user of google apps, I can say its not ready yet...
For example, maintaining email lists for mail outs isn't really working yet. Even though you can redirect your gmail to another address, if you try and put that address into the email list for a group mail out it can fail. Specifically, if the address uses characters that ar
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Depends. Back in the day (when the bartenders at the US Air Club knew my name AND what my preferred drink was), I rarely did work on an airplane. Why? Not because I didn't have work to do, but because I viewed the couple of hours of quiet time as a chance to relax and read a good book.
I have seen dozens of people pounding away on their keyboards on different flights and I have always wondered how is those people were so unproductive that th
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You can also enable POP3 with Gmail.
Re:obvious flaw? (Score:4, Interesting)
Documents should be stored in some sort of version control system (CVS, etc). When you hit the road you check out the revision you need and store it locally. Not exactly hard.
When I travel to give my talks [e.g. toorcon] I usually have 3-4 copies ofthe talk with me. On a CD, on a laptop, on a USB drive, etc. That way if one fails [which has happened] I have another. One year I went there my laptop wasn't all smooth so I had to borrow one, no problem, files on a usb drive, used another laptop and went on my way. Had I been stupid and put the presentation in a single spot [e.g. google] I'd be fucked [also because Toorcon NEVER has net access].
Also you have to think about the needless traffic this generates with minor revisions/etc going over the wire. Think of it like a dumb terminal, but with millions of users from all over the globe. That has to be a lot of traffic.
Tom
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in my opinion, that would be a microsoft killer - no doubt about it. Think of how cool it would be if you never had to think about where a document was - it just existed. If you worked on it on your laptop and then went somewhere without connectivity, it was just there, magically, on your laptop. If you went to a portal or someone else's computer, (if they have connectivity) the document is just there, magically, over the networ
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in my opinion, that would be a microsoft killer - no doubt about it. Think of how cool it would be if you never had to think about where a document was - it just existed. If you worked on it on your laptop and then went somewhere without connectivity, it was just there, magically, on your laptop. If you went to a portal or someone else's computer, (if they have connectivity) th
Won't replace Excel in businesses (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Won't replace Excel in businesses (Score:4, Insightful)
I never really expect to see full macro capabilities, but a simple mail merge, even from google speadsheet would be nice.
Re:Won't replace Excel in businesses (Score:4, Interesting)
Also, after they bought Writely and the spreadsheet company they also baught a second spreadsheet company. Reviewing their product I noticed it had a much more complete set of Excel features. How hard would it be for them to tack an SQL service to this? My guess: Not too hard at all.
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As a side note, it's important to see that this system is not the be-all and end-all of these kinds of applications. Furthermore, I'd hate for my company to come to it's knees while Google handles a DOS attack or something.
Re:Won't replace Excel in businesses (Score:4, Insightful)
Sorry, but it's not going to replace any Microsoft Office product until the program works like *every other* word process on the most basic level.
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Or the fact that, currently, Writely doesn't even have the most basic functionality like utilizing the INSERT key on the keyboard?
Sorry, but it's not going to replace any Microsoft Office product until the program works like *every other* word process on the most basic level.
I'm pretty sure that feature won't be a deal breaker anywhere. Most people regard that as more of an annoyance, because insert is too close to delete. For that matter, no feature that small will ever be a deal breaker when there is this much cash at stake. Such a feature is too easy to add if it becomes a big issue. And if you think every other word processor works the same way on a low level, you must have a very narrow definition of "word processor". Besides, any company that is open to the idea of an on
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Nor Word... (Score:2, Informative)
Among other things, that very basic and relied-upon feature is listed as "Experimental," it doesn't offer a "Replace" option, but only a "Replace All" and it is not able to be Un-Done.
That told me volumes about just how far this application has to go.
Just because i
Fair Comparison? (Score:5, Interesting)
Is that really a fair comparison, though? Google's email is great, but their Spreadsheet and Word Processor solutions are nowhere near as sophisticated as MS Office. And in an office environment, many of those differences do matter.
I haven't played with Google Calendar enough, but would it be a workable replacement for the Outlook calendar? i.e. Can you schedule meetings with a simple invite rather than telling everyone to put it on their calendar? Can other users see your unavailable periods when scheduling?
I hate to give Microsoft props, but there are features that are critical to the office use of software. If Google doesn't provide those features, they will not be able to compete at all. Which means that the supposed "leverage" with Microsoft would be nothing more than hogwash.
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> Is that really a fair comparison, though? Google's email is great, but their Spreadsheet and Word Processor solutions are nowhere near as sophisticated as MS Office. And in an office environment, many of those differences do matter.
For simple documents and spreadsheets, Google's office apps are sufficient. And I would say at least 75% of documents are simple enough to fall into this category. I certainly wouldn't call it a replacement though, but rather it works well besides MS Office especially with
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If people stuck to simply formatted documents, I wouldn't have such a nightmare reading Word attachments in OpenOffice. For whatever reason, though, many people where I work have enough time to totally mangle the formatting while adding useless background images and so forth.
A memo doesn't need, and sho
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it states that "Shared Calendar Resources" are available in the purchased edition. I havn't tried it so I can't really comment.
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In the free edition, you can share calendars with eachother and then they can see what you're doing. I'm not sure if there's a specific busy or available feature, but if you see
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I've done some stuff with Google Spreadsheet and it's surprisingly useful. Sure it doesn't support all the power features of excel, but when you need to throw together a simple sheet (particularly if it involves collaboration between individuals) it works surprisingly well.
I'd love to see some analysis about which excel features act
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It's funny, because I don't use PivotTables all that much. However, I do use charting. And I use the data import/export abilities. I deal in incredibly large reports on a regular basis. (Too much data for Google's solution to handle.) I occasionally do database imports. (Though I find OpenOffice to be more u
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Maybe someone else can remember the name, but after Google bought the company that they are using for the spreadsheet application they bought a SECOND company, lesser known, with a spreadsheet offering of their own. I got to try it about a day before they shut it down and i
Re:Fair Comparison? (Score:4, Informative)
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Is that really a fair comparison, though? Google's email is great, but their Spreadsheet and Word Processor solutions are nowhere near as sophisticated as MS Office. And in an office environment, many of those differences do matter.
There are advantages and disadvantages to both systems. You're correct that Google's offerings are not as featureful. They also require Web access at all times to use (for now) which is a huge drawback for many people. Also, sending confidential over the network is a security no-no for a lot of organizations.
Google's offering has some real advantages too. You can access it from any machine, including one at work and home or one at home and school and the library. Google's offering runs on any OS, a big p
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You work in a marketing department, don't you?
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"Featureful" is a perfectly cromulent word.
Nope, engineering, but I have helped out with white papers and technical reviews of marketing materials. I was told just the other day that marketers are allowed and encouraged to increase the English lexicon with wonderful new terms.
Re:Fair Comparison? (Score:4, Insightful)
Yes this stuff is obviously not going to be as good as a full MS Office install. That doesn't really matter though, because this clearly isn't intended to be an Office "killer" or whatever you want to call it. Google is going after the low hanging fruit - people who have relatively simple needs and would prefer a cheap option, particularly one that has the benefits of offsite backup and accessibility from everywhere. That's not everyone, indeed it is a small market segment, so its hardly going to put a dent in MS Office's market share. On the other hand it is, aparently, a big enough market segment that Google thinks they cna make money at it - and I would tend to agree with them. MS Office is overkill for a lot of small companies, and those same companies tend to be the ones that are less inclined to have full time IT staff to manage file servers, backups, and so on. Just because the product isn't perfect for everyone doesn't mean there isn't a market big enough to exploit. Not everything has to be about total market domination.
Just becuase it's cheaper (Score:2)
I really don't see google apps being a threat to office anytime soon. I used their spreadsheet program last night for the first time to plot some data for simple graph. The reason google apps is simple and easy to use is that it doesn't do much, like graphs and charts. Also preforming simple tasks can take a while for the the spreadsheet to update. Their are plenty of other options that are easy to use and easy to find both of Office and Open Office. I just don't see the reason to pa
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(To the spelling and grammar lurkers, I didn't spell check or grammar check, thanks for your understanding.)
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Then why did Microsoft kill Netscape?
The fact is, the browser can do it too. Microsoft made the mistake of thinking that they should kill the other browsers, really they should have killed other web sites! If you don't know what I mean, then you weren't alive in the 1990's...
Not Yet (Score:2)
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Of course, at some point you have to throw in Open Office as well, and ask which of the three is the best solution
If features were exact I would still take MS (Score:2, Insightful)
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Microsoft can revoke your license to use the software, and then your data becomes inaccessible because it's locked in to their proprietary formats.
Not saying that google is any better in this regard, but it's still something to watch out for.
However, if google were to provide this service as an appliance you could run on site, and which stores the data in an open format all these problems would go away.
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Like you said - having an appliance would fix this, but I wouldn't hold my breath. That's not Google's model and they're unlikely to transition into an appliance vendor any time soon.
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Aka the "situation normal, all fucked up" found in most companies?
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Great marketing? (Score:3, Insightful)
I once heard networking defined as being in a room, having your data located 200 feet down the hallway and believing that it is a good thing. I think the ASP model is flawed in providing the needs for large organizations. There are issues surrounding security of data and uptime availability that probably outweigh the cost savings. Security is huge, especially given Google's stated mission to make ALL information available to the world. Do I want to give them my confidential sales information? Not.
The cost savings isn't what its cracked up to be either, since the cost is $50 per employee, per year. It seems like Microsoft is about 4-5 years between major releases, so your cost is $200-$250 per seat for 4-5 years.
Overall, I'll pass for now.
Needs to be an appliance (Score:5, Insightful)
We're not holding our breath.
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Re:Needs to be an appliance (Score:5, Interesting)
Personally, I'm amazed there isn't an appliance version of GMail available yet. Although I suppose they'd have to get it out of beta first...
Re:Needs to be an appliance & more (Score:2)
Duh (Score:3, Insightful)
"What we see in the Google Apps is a real focus on making them easy to use and intuitive," she said. "And that's something that Microsoft has been unable to do in all of its years with Office."
It's easy to make something easy and intuitive when they have almost no capability. Let's see Google make it a lot easier and intuitive AND have the same functionality.
IMAP (Score:2)
PS Pop is -not- Imap.
Regardless of how good the apps are aren't..... (Score:2)
Why should companies trust Google? (Score:4, Insightful)
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OTOH, for small businesses that want to keep costs down, this will be useful. One will not need as powerful computers, one will not need in house servers, or rented off site servers, and one will not need to generate a backup plan. I recall at one point when I was backing
Re:Why should companies trust Google? (Score:4, Insightful)
Google becomes an IT supplier with this scheme, and contracts will be written that stipulate confidentiality and security. This is no different than hiring an outside consultancy to run your own company owned servers. Cries of "OMG Gooogle will pwn us all!!!1!one!!" are simply not justified. It's a business relationship, same as any other.
Not so much Microsoft ... (Score:4, Interesting)
Big cost saver potentially (Score:5, Insightful)
For what you get, and for everything that you *don't* have to buy, that's idiotically cheap.
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They're focusing on the $225 vs $50 per employee per year, but $225 isn't the TCO number. You also have to calculate the salaries of the IT staff who maintain the company email server and such, or the hosting for the same.
Don't forget fileservers for the data and backup of it and administration costs for those. Also don't forget the cost of installing and maintaining licensing for office applications as well as the danger of accidentally installing too many copies of office for your licenses. Don't forget the cost of direct phone support.
That said, this would not fly at my company for two reasons. One, although several browsers are working on it, running apps like this when the internet connection is down is not feasible
Other considerations (Score:4, Informative)
Several factors stopped me from being able to make that jump.
1) Legacy...everyone was using Exchange and we had tons of email in it that would be a pain to copy into folders.
2) Regulation. How does google keep all company emails in one place that can be archived and backed up. I'm sure Google won't loose someone's email anytime soon ( less likely then us ), but how do you document their backup procedures.
3) Current email addresses. No one wanted to give them up.
4) Internet bandwidth and reliance. People tend to think of the internet like electricity, but we are not there yet. It is funny that I get a faster connection at my house with a cable modem then our dual t1s provide...and a lot cheaper. This is another post, but unless you are in a big data center getting a decent sized pipe at a reasonable price is still overpriced.
5) Gateway level controls. We wanted to see every email that came in. We run a spam firewall, but if it blocks errantly we have a log. If Google blocks and email?
6) Customer support emails. We have tons of email addresses for our clients/etc that would probably be a pain to setup.
7) Fax support. We have to integrate with a fax server...yep it sucks.
8) Public folders ( ie email boxes accessible by more then one person )...ties in with 6.
To name a few.
If I was starting up a small software company I'd be all over this. As far as for enterprise uses...I think Google has a long road ahead of them...but they are speeding car.
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Companies can customize the Gmail accounts to reflect their workers and firms (worker@firm.com).
Many of your other stated concerns are somewhat generic to any change in mail services - I encountered several of them by moving our employees to an in-house mail server from a myriad of outside services. IMHO:
1. Always a problem with changes in service. Users have to decide what's important in their ma
I used to work in Redmond (not MS) (Score:4, Interesting)
Not bad (Score:2)
Well shoot, is that all? Sounds like a deal to me. That is, what, about
Better negotiating position is the point (Score:4, Insightful)
Microsoft's battle against GO Penpoint is instructive because it's well documented from both sides. The GO side is covered in the famous book Startup, and the Microsoft side is covered in the book Barbarians Led by Bill Gates. In that book the GO chapter ends with the death of Microsoft Pen Windows and a revelation from one of the managers--that the goal was not to sell Pen Windows, but simply to block GO's success in the marketplace---"Block the kick," not score the touchdown.
Google vs Microsoft (Score:2)
ZDNet UK's got a video interview with Google about Web Apps Premier. In it Google's European enterprise director, Roberto Solimene, promises that the product offers 'seamless integration' between the various applications. He also claims that Google's "hundreds of thousands of servers worldwide" will help it compete against Microsoft.
You can see it here [zdnet.co.uk].
Don't see the benefit (Score:3, Insightful)
They Fail (Score:4, Insightful)
I like google, gmail, etc, etc., etc..
All I wanted was to get some extra space in my inbox since the free space isnt' enough for me..
To use this service you need to have a domain name...
I own serveral but I don't want my email @ my domain name
All of that is a minor point, just well something that I want...
Here is why they fail...
I can't contact them... there isn't an easy simple way to reach them and find out if there is an alternative..
When you click through into their help system you get into page after page of "try this and try that..."
It's one thing to offer free stuff for FREE and skimp on the help...
When your trying to sell something.. you need to be able to help people...
Not that my problem is such a big deal, but each group of people signing up will have their own problems, and the biggest one is that they can't get anyone on the phone or in email, without jumping through so many hoops, pages, forms and FAQs that well, it's like talking to a wall...
POP vs Exchange (or even IMAP) (Score:3, Interesting)
If gMail implements IMAP, *THEN* they will have a much more competitive offereing, at least on the email side of things.
Welcome back to 1975 (Score:4, Interesting)
The Personal Computer, if google/microsoft have their way, will cease to exist. Welcome back the dumb terminal.
Let google/microsoft store all your data, for a low monthly fee.
Use all your favorite applications, for a low monthly fee.
It's the old micropayment bullshit, disguised as a new 'pay as you go' initiative. Same shit, different smell.
1975 called, it wants its 'micropayment' system back.
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> even further waste.
Think ahead. The same could have been said when people moved from mechanical typewriters to electrical typewriters. Today you simply don't expect power outages for hours. The internet will move into that direction simply because it is indispensable for more and more companies.
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Well, if it's anything like me, it WILL decrease productivity. Now, excuse me, I must get back to work.
Cheers,
Fozzy
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$50 is, what, less than a single month of broadband internet and cable in the US?