Starting on May 10, new organizations (excluding schools and non-profits) with more than 10 users will need to sign up for the paid service, Google Apps for Business

While this is a regrettable change, many small and micro-businesses will still be able to take advantage of the benefits a free account offers.  Ten email accounts is enough for many small businesses and the intelligent use of aliases, will allow generic email addresses like info@ and sales@ to be used to limit the total number of accounts to less than 10.  Even if you just need one email address and a simple website then CloudG6 and Google Apps is a good option for you.

If more than 10 email addresses are required then the Business account does offer valuable features designed for businesses – customer support, more generous storage limits, a 99.9% SLA, and more. Pricing is U$50 per account per year, but this can now be billed at US$5 per month per user, so you only pay for what you use and can expand and contract the number of users as required.  While not free any longer, Google Apps for Business still is very good value compared to hosted options available in the market.

Over 3 million businesses are now using Google Apps including some big businesses, such as Heinz, Jaguar and Land Rover and the City of Los Angeles.