Why Should You Upgrade to The G Suite Basic Version from The Legacy Version?

G Suite is a  cloud computing suite comprising productivity and collaboration tools developed by Google. It was first launched on August 28, 2006, and known as Google Apps for your Domain. G Suite encompasses  Gmail, Hangout Chat, Hangout Meet, and Currents for the communication part and Google Docs, Google Sheets, Slides, Slides, Jamboards, and so on for the collaboration part. Now you may be wondering about Currents. Google+ for G Suite is renamed as Currents.

Google offered G Suite for free till December 6, 2012. The free version, known as the Standard Version or the Legacy version,  has been stopped by Google. Also, Google has stopped the support services for the same. Customers who have purchased G Suite before 2012 can still enjoy the services for the free version though it is advisable to upgrade to the Basic version to boost the productivity of the organization. It is important to upgrade to the Basic version. So in this article, I have mentioned some key factors which you should take into consideration to upgrade to the Basic version where you will get more business features and will be able to enhance the productivity for your organization.

The Key Factors are-

1. Email Storage: In the G Suite standard version you will get only 15 GB of storage space. But in the Basic version, you will get 30 GB of storage space by default which is twice more than the standard one. In this fast-paced world and for the corporate sector 15 GB of space is a bit low. Additional storages cannot be purchased in the free version which is possible and are available depending on your requirements, on a chargeable basis in case you upgrade.

2. Mobile Device Management: The most important feature in G Suite is Mobile Device management. It is for keeping your organization data safe and secure. If you as an administrator enable MDM then people of your organization can access any emails, documents, and anything remotely from their device by just installing Google Device policy. Now as an admin you have full access to the user's device. If the mobile gets lost or damaged you can remotely wipe out the data. If you found anything suspicious on the user’s device then as an admin you can wipe out the data remotely and safely secure data for the organization. In the standard version, mobile device management is not so advanced like the basic version. 

3. Addition of Licenses: In the standard version you cannot add any more licenses if you have already used your license quota purchased initially. But in the Basic version you can add an unlimited number of licenses and users anytime you wish to.

4. Routing for Monitoring: In the G Suite Basic version as an admin, you have the option of routing where you don't keep someone in your cc of the email you will still get a copy of that. You can also reject, quarantine, or deliver those mails with modifications. But in the standard version, you cannot do it.

5. Email Log Reports: As a G Suite admin in the Basic version you can get detailed mailing reports of all the users in the organization. From the report, you can customize the reports or export the data according to the customer’s needs.

6. Email Whitelisting and Blacklisting: If you find any emails from any mail id incorrectly marked as spam then as an admin you have the privilege to whitelist that domain so that the mails will not be marked as spam. You can also blacklist domains if you don't want to receive emails from any sender or senders.

7. Applying Compliances: To maintain organizational security and keep your data secure you can apply compliances to the mails as a G Suite admin.

a. Content Compliance: To ensure security you have the option of content compliance. Suppose you can set “ sensitive “ as content compliance. Now if anyone wants to send any information which may be company information and has the word sensitive, the message will be routed to the respective team and have the option to reject, quarantine the message.

b. Attachment Compliance: Through attachment compliance, you can restrict sharing files of different file formats.

8. Google Vault: Google vault is used to retain, hold, and export data of an organization for retention and e-discovery needs. It is an add-on service for the Basic version available on a chargeable basis offered by Google. It is used for manly archiving company’s data, Gmail messages, files in Google Drive, and many more. But to take this add-on service you have to upgrade to the Basic version. You cannot use Google Vault with the standard version. By using Google vault you are keeping a backup of your data and keeping it secured. 

9. Google Support: Last but not least which is a crucial factor is the support from Google. Google will not provide any support for the standard version or the legacy version. So if you are facing any issues or problems with your mails and using the standard version, you will not get any support from Google. You have to switch to the Basic version. This means there is no guaranteed uptime and your business email might get hampered and break down anytime.