Grandfathered-in “Legacy G Suite” customers obtained 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,” stated the brand new message that abruptly appeared in folks’s accounts. This was after Legacy G Suite customers went via 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 previous banner from earlier within the course of final yr, and our crew is engaged on eradicating it. More modifications usually are not occurring presently, and those that beforehand opted-in for private use usually are not anticipated to take any additional motion.”
We’ve obtained a couple of questions on this message, and this Reddit submit has folks questioning what the deal is, nevertheless it’s only a bug. That’s nice as a result of Legacy G Suite customers have gone via sufficient already. To recap, Google at present presents 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. Today that is referred to as “Google Workspace,” however as a result of Google’s fixed rebrands, it was first referred to as “Google Apps to your Domain,” then “Google Apps,” after which “G Suite.” Google’s customized area service was not all the time paywalled and never all the time solely aimed 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 suggests in the present day they’re getting a paid service without spending a dime.
Last yr, the Google accounting division turned its Eye of Sauron on these long-term customers and threatened to remove their practically 16-year-old accounts in the event that they did not begin paying a enterprise price 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 verify that they had been utilizing their accounts for “non-business” functions. After that, all the pieces 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 might have moved to a different new service. Even although Google says it is an error that customers might see this message, really 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 “Business Starter,” and grandfathered-in customers are on “Legacy G Suite”, however “Workspace for private use” shouldn’t be a factor. Apparently, this was all of the beta branding for the unique plan final yr, and in some way all of it obtained revealed yesterday.
Lee Hutchinson
Google Workspace for private use can be an excellent product for Google to promote, by the way in which. We’ve complained earlier than that whereas Apple and Microsoft each promote customized area electronic mail companies to customers at an inexpensive price, 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.