Grandfathered-in “Legacy G Suite” customers acquired a scare not too long ago when one other new “transition” message began popping up within the Google Admin console. “The transition to Google Workspace has began,” stated the brand new message that all of the sudden appeared in folks’s accounts. This was after Legacy G Suite customers went by means of a contentious transition final yr, the place Google’s opening place concerned shutting down their accounts if folks did not begin paying, however ultimately, it was talked into not doing that. A Google spokesperson tells us the Workspace transition message was “a bug that surfaced an previous banner from earlier within the course of final yr, and our workforce is engaged on eradicating it. Extra adjustments aren’t occurring presently, and people who beforehand opted-in for private use aren’t anticipated to take any additional motion.”

We have obtained a number of questions on this message, and this Reddit submit has folks questioning what the deal is, but it surely’s only a bug. That is nice as a result of Legacy G Suite customers have gone by means of sufficient already. To recap, Google at present gives companies the choice to pay a month-to-month payment for a Google/Gmail account that ends in a customized area title as a substitute of @gmail.com. At this time that is known as “Google Workspace,” however on account of Google’s fixed rebrands, it was first known as “Google Apps in your Area,” then “Google Apps,” after which “G Suite.” Google’s customized area service was not all the time paywalled and never all the time completely geared toward companies—it was free from 2006 to 2012. Google even pitched these accounts to households as a approach to let everybody have related e-mail addresses. Some folks did so, which implies at this time they’re getting a paid service without spending a dime.

Final yr, the Google accounting division turned its Eye of Sauron on these long-term customers and threatened to remove their almost 16-year-old accounts in the event that they did not begin paying a enterprise charge for these previously free and never essentially enterprise accounts. After a public outcry, Google ultimately left these “Legacy G Suite accounts” alone after making customers affirm that they had been utilizing their accounts for “non-business” functions. After that, all the things was settled.

Legacy G Suite customers are particularly not part of “Workspace,” which is a paid service. So this new message that popped up yesterday suggests they might have moved to a different new service. Though Google says it is an error that customers might see this message, really following the immediate would lead you to a different error message about “Google Workspace for private use” which is a product that doesn’t exist. Workspace has tiers like “Enterprise Starter,” and grandfathered-in customers are on “Legacy G Suite”, however “Workspace for private use” shouldn’t be a factor. Apparently, this was all of the beta branding for the unique plan final yr, and one way or the other all of it acquired printed yesterday.

Google Workspace for private use can be an incredible product for Google to promote, by the way in which. We have complained earlier than that whereas Apple and Microsoft each promote customized area e-mail providers to customers at an affordable charge, Google doesn’t, solely providing enterprise e-mail at way more costly charges. An enormous a part of the Legacy G suite drawback is that these private customers have nowhere to go inside Google.