Google Apps edition branding usage and style guide

Google is updating the edition names for each of our different Google Apps brands. The changes are as follows:

  • Google Apps Standard Edition >>> Google Apps
  • Google Apps Premier Edition >>> Google Apps for Business
  • Google Apps Education Edition >>> Google Apps for Education
  • Google Apps Partner Edition >>> Google Apps for ISPs
  • Google Apps Team Edition >>> Google Apps for Teams
  • Google Apps for Government  [no change]

Background:
This change to a more consistent and descriptive naming system should help resellers, customers, and prospects more easily understand which edition is best for them.  It should particularly help our resellers when discussing our business product with their business customers.

Referring to "Google Apps"
"Google Apps" refers to both the whole family of products as well as the base-level free edition.  As a result it will still be appropriate to say “Google Apps is Google’s bundling of messaging and collaboration tools.”  However, if you need to refer to the free base-level edition of Google Apps within content primarily about a different edition (like Google Apps for Business), be sure to use descriptive text to reinforce that you’re referring to the base-level product, not the family of products.

Capitalization
The whole product name except for the word “for” should be capitalized.

References to multiple editions
When referring to multiple editions, it’s acceptable to use phrases like “Google Apps for Business and Education” or “Google Apps for Business or Education”.

First-use rule
When you need to refer to the same edition repeatedly on a web page, PDF or other piece of collateral, and using the full edition name would be clumsy / repetitive, it is acceptable to use the full edition name in the first reference, and then abbreviate to “Google Apps” for subsequent references.  Keep in mind that the free base-level edition is now called “Google Apps” though, so when there’s a possibility of ambiguity, err on the conservative side and use the full edition name.

“Compare editions”
While the different versions of Google Apps don’t have the word “edition” any longer, it’s still okay to use the phrases “compare editions” or “compare versions”.

Logo
This should does not affect Google Apps logos because we never referred to an edition name in a logo. At this time there will not be a special "Google Apps for Business" logo.

Please refer to the Google Apps product website at www.google.com/a for more example usage.