As I’ve discussed before, IV uses Google to host its email and it works like a charm. In addition, I have been using Google’s set of “Apps” for collaborative word processing, excel and calendar functions for the past eight months or so (perhaps closer to a year).

This morning, Google announced the official release of Google Apps Premier for the corporate user and for the first time, you have to pay for it. Is it worth it? Well, you can see a great summary of features and a comparison with Microsoft’s Window’s Live at WebWorkerDaily.com.

However, there was another, less publicized announcement made by Avaya today which will pit Google against Microsoft in yet another area… Avaya plans on integrating its voice and data services with Google Apps Premier in the near future, thereby directly competing with a similar agreement between Microsoft and Nortel. This should bring some interesting things to come in the enormous (and enormously underserved) small business market. I love this stuff!!