Beta Squared Gmail

Google announced yesterday on their official blog that they are currently looking for organizations to beta test the corporate use of their beta email service Gmail. If you want to try out this (beta * beta) service you will have to ask kindly and cross your fingers since like most beta services there is limited availability.

I often hear Google criticized by investors for not developing products and services that can make money independent of advertisements. While advertising makes up more than 90% of Google’s annual income, they continue to prove that free services and applications can still be profitable. They proved this with their search service, video service, earth application, and now email service.

The investors are stunned when Google buys software products like keyhole and urchin and then releases them to the public for no charge. When will they learn that there is money behind the madness of releasing free software to the general public? I believe that in the near future investors will find that all software companies will sell their products with the following business model: a free version of the software with limited functionality (or advertising generated revenue), an affordable version of the software with complete functionality (or without advertisements), and a corporate version that includes extended functionality. With that in mind, I think investors need to have a little more faith in Google executives and the decisions they make in regards to software cost and licensing.

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