Google wants to be the undisputed leader in the corporate world and is always aiming its missiles at big guns in the industry since it knows that's the only way of capturing the numero uno spot. Continuing with its effort to dethrone Microsoft which we know it wants to do soon, the company has started offering the premier edition of Google Apps at a fee of $50 for an yearly account.

With this service it plans to give a tough fight to Microsoft which has dominated the area with its Microsoft's Office desktop software. It started off as a free service last year and it offered people applications including IM, e-mail and VoIP. The premium package comes along with additional storage, phone support and a new set of admin and business integration capabilities. As a special offer you can use Premier edition for free until 30th April, 2007.

This is what is being offered with Google Aps Premium Edition:

•

Access to office-style applications - Google Docs & Spreadsheets, Google Page Creator.
• Access to communication applications - GMail (@your-own-domain), Google Calendar, Google Talk (voice/IM).
• Access to Google Homepage (maybe corporations could deck this out to become their intranet homepage?)
• Control panel to manage the domain
• Ads can be turned off
• Storage at 10GB/user
• Integration with organisation's sign-on and email infrastructure
• Phone support

Though Google Apps has been able to attract a number of users but we can't see it as an instant threat to Microsoft's dominance. Some companies might view Google Apps as a way of handling over their controls but the positive image of Google is expected to prevail in the end. Google is expected to make some inroads but not so much that it does not even give Microsoft a chance to fight back.