Google intros Apps edition to bypass the IT department

IDG News Service - Google Inc. is releasing a new edition of its hosted applications suite that end users can bring into the workplace without involving their IT departments.

It means that IT managers who fret about employees using unauthorized software at work will have another tool to worry about, especially in industries where information management is heavily regulated, like health care and finance.

The new release, called Google Apps Team Edition, is due to be available Thursday for free. It is aimed at employees who are interested in using Google Apps but whose employers haven't signed up for it, said Rajen Sheth, Google Apps senior product manager.

Team Edition contains the core communication and collaboration services and applications from other editions, like the word processor, spreadsheet, Start page, Talk instant messaging and calendar, but not Gmail, which requires IT participation to reroute the company's e-mail flow.

So far, more than 500,000 mostly small organizations have signed up for Google Apps, but Standard, Education, Partner and Premier versions require IT to implement the suite because the services are linked to an organization's Internet domain.

That changes with the Team Edition, which will let employees set up Google Apps workgroups as long as they have valid e-mail addresses with their organizations' domains, Sheth said.

"Google Apps has been, by definition, an IT project, and now we want to let people use it without IT involvement," Sheth said.

Once signed up with Team Edition, people can see who else in their organization's Internet domain is also a user and invite those who aren't, Sheth said.

"It provides a quick way for workgroups to start collaborating," he said.

IT departments shouldn't get angry about Team Edition, according to Sheth, because, unlike other software that employees use without IT approval, it provides an upgrade path to IT-manageable versions.

"The IT department always has the option to sign up for the Standard Edition for free if they want to provide control over this," Sheth said. "This is a solid, happy medium."

Team Edition can also be upgraded to the other editions, including Education, which is free, and Premier, which costs $50 per user per year. Although Gmail isn't part of Team Edition, Google is exploring ways to add it, Sheth said.

As a Web-hosted software suite, an unmanaged Google Apps deployment, by its very nature, can represent a concern for IT departments, since the applications and the data generated are stored outside organizations' firewalls in Google data centers.

However, Team Edition won't be the only hosted software that employees use in their organizations without getting approval from the IT department, said Erica Driver, a Forrester Research Inc. analyst.