Google's big news today ended up being a premier version of Google Apps. Now, for $50/user/month year businesses can use Google Apps with a number of upgrades over the free versions, including 10GB of Gmail storage, 99.9% uptime guaranteed, phone support, and advertising-free operation. Just about everyone with a blog had something to say about this, though many of them were just pointing out how many other people commented on it. The Basics:

• Boston.com
• Techmeme
• Information Week
• NY Times

The Bloggers:

• Forrester
• Office Evo
• Infections Greed
• Techcrunch
• SEO Land
• Gigaom
• Gartenblog

Noteworthy:

• Read/Write - no presentation app?
• ZDnet- looking at the fine print
• Zoho - eek! actually we are not worried just yet

All told, Google's Apps looks like a pretty nice package. It is lacking in a number of areas and has a few scary contractual terms, but all in all it looks like a good package. The $50 price per user makes it much more affordable then Microsoft Office, especially factoring in a 2007 upgrade, but the users will have to have an internet connection in order to access their apps and stored data. So there are tradeoffs, but in this time of non-stop connection, it is looking like a pretty solid deal, especially for small business users.