I don't think it's a free webmail for your end users to register type product? It looks to me from the signup form that it is just for you to setup email accounts for internal users via gmail.. I could be wrong but I got that impression..
Update: Just did a site: for the /hosted sub folder and found this: https://www.google.com/hosted/jaguars.sjcc.edu/Dashboard That doesn't seem to have any "signup" option
i was wondering if they would have the same attachments limit or one could set that per each mail account..
I wasn't 100% sure but it seemed to me when reading through the sign-up process that it would indeed be someone @ mydomain.com. Maybe I read it wrong, I don't know, but since I have a zillion gmail invites and I've given one to everybody I know, my assumption was that the email url would be @mydomain.com.
I wonder if they will ever put their ads on hosted gmail accounts and share the revenue with you, the domain owner (ala AdSense)... If so, I am curious if they will let you customize the look of your ads, etc
Similar services have been offered by other companies for a long time (in fact, one of my domains uses one of them: rocketscientists.ca). On the plus side: It is a clever way to do some viral marketing AND you'll probably get commission from the ads users see when logged in to check their e-mails. On the down side: You'll have to redirect your MX mail pointer to Google's services AND you'll have to re-create all existing email accounts on the Google service. As the domain owner, you won't get any breaks from Google either. After adding the e-mail service to my domain, and recreating all the user accounts, the company providing this service charged me for the privilege of going ad-fee, and getting a bigger mailbox--features I originally had included in my hosting package. Also, the fact that you are re-setting the MX mail pointer means that you should be sure that you want this change to be permanent; if you change your mind later, you will have some angry users, and you will have to re-set that pointer AGAIN. You also run the risk of having spammers sign up for your service and abusing it--so your domain gets a black eye for the actions of others. Unless it is a feature you'd REALLY like to offer to your site visitors, and that people would be attracted by your domain name, I doubt it would be worthwhile.
No, that's not how it will work. You'll control the email addresses that are valid for the domain. But.. that does lead me into the why you would and why you wouldn't discussion. First of all, this is great. I'll move my (very small) mail domain to google in a heartbeat and I could see many other small organizations doing the same thing. If the choice is Google or a hosting company, I think Google is going to make a lot more sense for a lot of companies. But there is another choice, and that's your own in-house mail server, and that market is harder for Google to get (disclaimer: I sell mail servers, specifically Kerio, so have some prejudice). One of the areas is what started this post: adding users to the domain. In many companies, that's a one step process: add the user to Active Directory and Exchange (or Kerio, etc.) immediately can accept mail for that user. In theory, Google could do the same, but that would involve giving them more inside firewall access than most people would allow. There's also the matter of logging, archiving, and backup. An in-house server can do all that - for example I have customers who are legally required to keep copies of email. Doing that with a Google hosted domain is again thoretically possible, but more difficult - Google could do it, but not as easily. Another advantage for the home team is accounts that are really programs. For example, you send email to and include a list of documents you want faxed to you - the mail server at abc.com automatically runs a program that handles the entire transaction. We also do things like that to automatically print out certain types of email, to trigger other business processes and so on. Google could loop back to you, but again that's letting them inside and you may not want to. I've detailed other reasons at http://aplawrence.com/CS/mailserver.html but I do agree that for a lot of folks without those kinds of needs, this could be exactly what they want.
I just applied and from what I read it does use your domain name which is a plus. I am going to also look more into what will happen if someone decides to abuse their system through my sites email system. I am defenitely concerned about this also.
In the coming future you can have your own personalized domain name connected to your Gmail account. They are testing the service as of now with 10.000 students of an University. Read the full story: http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2006/02/big-mail-on-campus.html
Gmail for domains, is indeed a google hosted gmail service, with your domain name MCfox. It's just that these few starter account like the San Jose college, are just part of the beta
I would think they would eventually give you a signup option. It is hard to say what they will do. If they really want to grow this beyond its testing stage. I also think that revenue sharing would be a good way of creating a huge buzz. Kevin
I personally dont think they're going to have revenue sharing, why would they? Just dont see it happening.
This sounds like another excellent idea from Google. I do hope they will offer some sort of revenue sharing arrangement, instead of getting us to pay for the service.