Google today announced Google Apps Team Edition, a update to its successful online office suite. Google Apps Team Edition is a free service which enables users within the same e-mail domain to collaborate easily with Google Apps, which includes the online-based office products Docs, Calendar, Talk, and Start Page.

"People are already using the consumer (hosted Google) apps in the workplace, like they did IM a decade ago," said Jeremy Milo, senior marketing manager for Google Apps. "We're trying to bring more security by introducing the notion of domain awareness."

This means that unlike classic IM services, the communications is restricted within a certain domain for increased security and ease of use. Google already had the Google Apps in two offerings: a free Standard Edition and a Premier Edition that has a fee.

Essentially, the new offering targets employees who are interested in using Google Apps but whose employers haven't signed up for it. Thus any such employee can open an account and start using the apps with anyone within the organization who also signed up.

The main advantage is that it is free, compared with the $50 per user per year for the Premier Edition. Google Apps has been available as a free service since August 2006 and it includes the large storage-capacity service Gmail, Google Calendar, Google Talk, Google Docs and the Start Page feature for creating a customizable home page on a specific domain. In September last year, Google has added Google Presentations into Google Apps.

Google Apps Premier Edition, the business version of Google Apps, was unveiled in February last year and it offers over the free version APIs for business integration, 99.9 percent uptime, 24x7 support for critical issues and advertising is optional. Perhaps as a reaction to Google's product, Microsoft announced last year Office Live Workspace, a web service which allows users to save more than 1,000 Office documents to one place online, access them through the Web, and share the documents with others in a password- protected, invitation-only online workspace.