It's a compelling question. While the Google Apps suite of products has a convenience factor for individuals looking to take their documents from place to place without the worry of software compatibility or major storage restrictions, just how well will the model transfer to the business arena? This is where the gold lies for Google if it's serious about breaking Microsoft's hold on the office software market, and it also serves as an early pathfinder for professional cloud computing.

What Google offers, therefore, in the Premier Edition of its Apps package, is a collection of tools with business very much in mind. Included is Google Mail and Calendar, 25GB of storage space, disabling of Google Ads and 90 day e-mail archiving, along with a guarantee of 99.9 percent uptime for Gmail, Calendar and Google Talk (the firm recently compensated Google Apps Premier Edition users with $2.05 each when Gmail was down for several hours).

Get the latest Dell Coupons and other computer coupons at CheapStingyBargains.com.

On top of that there's use of Google Docs (which includes word processing, spreadsheet and presentation tools) and Sites, 10GB of shared storage for those along with a further 500MB per user, and private Google Video options.

Throw in the crucial back-end e-mail and telephone support and it's not a bad package at first glance, for $50 a year per user. Granted, the bulk of these are tools that Google makes available for free already, but the support options are welcome and the storage too could be quite compelling.

Furthermore, Google provides guidance on how to integrate the tools into an existing company IT infrastructure. Some people report problems following said guidance, but Google's support on the matter is equally reported to be sound.

The drawbacks, though, are to be found in the current limitations of the software itself. Appreciating that Google evolves its tools at a faster rate than most, we still had alarm bells over using Docs in a business environment. We found them simply too slow to take advantage of the collaborative potential of having the files stored online, and it feels as if Google is waiting for Internet speeds to catch up to the potential here.

Likewise, the limited offline options really hold back what you can do right now, although again this is something Google is addressing. You're also constrained in terms of font choice, themes and general formatting and that's not going to be satisfactory for the bulk of businesses.

Contrast that with the free-of-charge OpenOffice, and even appreciating the admittedly-important support element, there's little competition. Gmail we've also quite warmed to, and it's a boon to have the adverts switched off, but is it enough to justify the annual asking price per user? Quite probably not.

In the short term the price of the package isn't bad, but the problem is that Google Apps still has quite a long way to go, and the components don't feel ready for a busy, fast business environment just yet. By all means take the firm up on the offer of a free trial, but committing anything beyond that strikes us as an option for a year or two down the line at the earliest.

A solution in need of refinement and also waiting, to some extent, for the world to catch up with it. Might be worth a look with a view to a potential migration in a few years' time, but the entire system seems too restrictive to be recommended to businesses right now.