Google Dares Businesses To Switch To Microsoft's Office 365

Google has pared the free version of Google Apps from its business suite, narrowing the gap between itself and Microsoft’s suite of hosted office productivity software services. But the costs and feature set offered by Google still, on paper, give Google the advantage.
In a bid to make things “very straightforward,” Google axed the basic Apps plan, which offered free email, calendaring and documents, plus 5GB  of generic Google Drive storage, to up to 10 users per month. All companies will now have to pay the $50 per year cost of Google Apps for Business.
“When we launched the premium business version we kept our free, basic version as well,” wrote Clay Bavor, director of product management for Google Apps, in a blog post. “Both businesses and individuals signed up for this version, but time has shown that in practice, the experience isn't quite right for either group. Businesses quickly outgrow the basic version and want things like 24/7 customer support and larger inboxes. Similarly, consumers often have to wait to get new features while we make them business-ready.