Grandfathered-in “Legacy G Suite” customers received a scare not too long ago when one other new “transition” message began popping up within the Google Admin console. “The transition to Google Workspace has began,” mentioned the brand new message that out of the blue appeared in folks’s accounts. This was after Legacy G Suite customers went by way of a contentious transition final yr, the place Google’s opening place concerned shutting down their accounts if folks did not begin paying, however finally, it was talked into not doing that. A Google spokesperson tells us the Workspace transition message was “a bug that surfaced an outdated banner from earlier within the course of final yr, and our crew is engaged on eradicating it. Extra modifications should not occurring right now, and those that beforehand opted-in for private use should not anticipated to take any additional motion.”
We have acquired just a few questions on this message, and this Reddit publish has folks questioning what the deal is, nevertheless it’s only a bug. That is nice as a result of Legacy G Suite customers have gone by way of sufficient already. To recap, Google presently gives companies the choice to pay a month-to-month charge for a Google/Gmail account that ends in a customized area title as an alternative of @gmail.com. At this time that is referred to as “Google Workspace,” however attributable to Google’s fixed rebrands, it was first referred to as “Google Apps to your Area,” then “Google Apps,” after which “G Suite.” Google’s customized area service was not all the time paywalled and never all the time completely geared toward companies—it was free from 2006 to 2012. Google even pitched these accounts to households as a option to let everybody have related electronic mail addresses. Some folks did so, which implies in the present day they’re getting a paid service totally free.
Final yr, the Google accounting division turned its Eye of Sauron on these long-term customers and threatened to remove their almost 16-year-old accounts in the event that they did not begin paying a enterprise fee for these previously free and never essentially enterprise accounts. After a public outcry, Google finally left these “Legacy G Suite accounts” alone after making customers affirm that they have been utilizing their accounts for “non-business” functions. After that, every little thing was settled.
Legacy G Suite customers are particularly not part of “Workspace,” which is a paid service. So this new message that popped up yesterday suggests they’d have moved to a different new service. Although Google says it is an error that customers might see this message, truly following the immediate would lead you to a different error message about “Google Workspace for private use” which is a product that doesn’t exist. Workspace has tiers like “Enterprise Starter,” and grandfathered-in customers are on “Legacy G Suite”, however “Workspace for private use” is just not a factor. Apparently, this was all of the beta branding for the unique plan final yr, and someway all of it received revealed yesterday.
Lee Hutchinson
Google Workspace for private use can be an awesome product for Google to promote, by the best way. We have complained earlier than that whereas Apple and Microsoft each promote customized area electronic mail providers to customers at an inexpensive fee, Google doesn’t, solely providing enterprise electronic mail at way more costly charges. An enormous a part of the Legacy G suite drawback is that these private customers have nowhere to go inside Google.
