I have been a heavy user of the Google Apps ever since they let me through the door. It is my solution of choice for my clients needing collaboration tools like basic email and calendaring. So much easier than managing POP/SMTP servers and awkward-looking open source calendar apps. Now, they are getting more and more press but I keep holding on to the dream that it will fly under the radar just enough to stay free yet continue to keep improving. However that makes sense!?!?

Google Apps: Poised to be a contender Google today introduced a major upgrade to its Google Apps hosted suite of communication and collaboration applications. As businesses grow increasingly comfortable with the hosted model, this cheaper alternative to Microsoft’s core Office applications could come to be seen as a viable replacement option by more and more enterprises. From: InfoWorld | Google Apps: Poised to be a contender | February 22, 2007 06:29 AM | By Caroline Craig

It certainly isn’t a perfect solution but it works. One less thing to worry about + Google usability = good things.