Google has announced an integrated suite of Web-based applications called Google Apps for Your Domain and a specialized suite for education called Google Apps for Education. Right now, Google Apps for Education includes Gmail, Google Calendar and Google Talk (Instant Messaging). In an email announcing the beta-release of the service, Google writes: “Everything is hosted by Google, so there’s no hardware to buy and maintain or software to manage, deploy and patch. The applications are fast, reliable, work from anywhere, anytime and have the elegant simplicity everyone has come to expect from Google. And they’re free. (via John Battelle’s Searchblog)
Blogger, Writely, and Google Spreadsheets integration can’t be far behind…but here’s Google’s response when asked if they would complete against Microsoft Office: “The right way to view Writely and Google Spreadsheets, especially in the context of a larger business, isn’t necessarily as a replacement for Word or Excel,” says Matt Glotzbach, head of enterprise products at Google. “They’re the collaboration component of that.”

(via NITLE Liberal Education Today blog)