Google goes into Business

According to BusinessWeek, Google will begin charging an unspecified amount "in coming weeks" for their Apps for Your Domain Service. I've written about the service previously here, here, and here.

BusinessWeek goes into some detail about the presumed confrontation between Google and Microsoft in the office suite department (Google is also rumored to be working on a PowerPoint analog web-based presentation software--supposedly the last unassailed bastion of Office expertise) and makes more of the differences between hosted and outsourced services than I think is justified (saying "Many large corporations are wary of having an e-mail system run outside their own walls, where they can't be sure it's secure from hackers and spies..." Were these those large corporations that are letting laptops walk off with thousands of records of private information stored on them? Getting their websites hacked? I think Google has better people securing their systems than these places ever will). But it's a milestone of sorts--that segment of the market that isn't quite comfortable with some service they aren't paying for can pony up now, and Google, presumably, will find a sustainable model in serving and supporting them without ads (for those who find the ads objectionable).