Google Apps Marketplace Open For Business

Google Apps is now a platform. Yesterday, Google launched the Google Apps Marketplace. The Marketplace allows developers to build add-on applications to the Google Apps platform. Google Apps provides all the Gmail services to a custom domain for small businesses. For example, if you live your you@mydomain.com email address, but you hate your webmail client, set up Google Apps for free and get the rich, robust Gmail you're used to, but with your same email address.

With the Marketplace, the features don't stop at the standard Gmail feature set. Third party developers can now build their app for integration within Gmail, allowing for easy access, and integration with Contacts, Mail, Calendars, and all the rest Gmail has to offer.

Developers will pay a $100/year rate to be in the program and will share 20% of revenue with Google. That's actually a better deal that Apple offers for the iPhone platform. Users can browse the marketplace, search, and refine results. Once they find an app they want, the Admin of the Apps domain can pay for it, and add it to their services. Once installed, the app can ask for permission to access your Google data, which you can then grant or prevent.

The Marketplace is launching with about 50 partners including Aviary, Zoho, dimdim, Intuit, TripIt, and more. The Marketplace is live right now, so Google Apps users, go check it out, and let us know what you think in the comments!

Google's demo video embedded after the jump!

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Google Apps Puts Another Nail In IE6's Coffin

Last Friday, Google announced that as of March 1, 2010, they are dropping support for older browsers including the macdaddy of terrible web-rendering, Internet Exploder 6 (heh, see what I did there?). Google yanked support for IE6 from Google Apps, Google Docs, and Google Sites, leaving behind a list of compatible browsers consisting of: IE7.0+, Firefox 3.0+, Chrome 4.0+, and Safari 3.0+.

This isn't so much a jab at Microsoft so much as it is all the companies who are STILL USING IT. Want to use Google Docs, Apps, and Sites? Update your software to be compatible with new browsers. There's no excuse for remaining on an ancient platform. But still, lately the entire intarwebz has been very adamant about not supporting IE6 anymore, so maybe this will stir up the crowds enough to finally get everyone to make the jump.

GMail Uploader Now Out For Mac

Google Apps users, pay attention, this one is for you. Google's always looking to make lives easier. So, of course, they're looking to help out with one of the most laborious/daunting tasks a computer user will every face. Moving your email. Whether you're switching services or just clients, it's usually a pretty grueling process to make sure everything goes smoothly.

Well, for businesses not yet using Google Apps, you should be. Here's why: Google offers a little helper app to upload all your existing local email to Google's servers. As of last week, that little helper app is available for the Mac. It supports Apple Mail, Eudora, and Thunderbird, in addition to any other apps that use the same archiving system. The app has just one small shortcoming: after 500 messages, the system is limited to one message per second, so if you need to, leave it running overnight. So, Google Apps users on a Mac, if you haven't migrated your email just yet, go get to it.