Thursday, February 22, 2007

Google Apps and Its APIs

Today Google Apps Premier Edition went live. I don't usually blog about my company's products. But this time, I had a hand or two in it.

This is a big day in history. Back in 1995, Larry Ellison started the Network Computing movement. He envisioned super powerful servers serving thin clients (Network Computers that don't even have a hard drive). His Network Computer companies folded after a couple of years. But that vision lived on. History just added a funny twist to it.

Today, we see client machines as powerful as servers, running full OSes. But the Network Computing vision has finally seen its light of the day. Except for photos and videos, most of My Stuff (tm) is already in The Cloud (tm). I move between 4 computers (3 OSes) with ease. Google Apps makes that easy. Now you can have email, calendar, IM, intranet site, docs and spreadsheets all hosted free for your organization. If you want the premium features such as super sized inbox (10GB), API access and phone support, you pay for $50 a seat a year. No machines to buy. No software to install. No backups to maintain.

Besides the Calendar API available previously, a Provisioning API and a Single Sign-on API are also launched today. You can build your own application to manage your users and mailing lists.

Don't you want to start playing with it?