Google Workspace started as Gmail accounts for one California college
Before it had a grand name, Google's office suite was a trial run hosting email for students at San Jose City College in 2006. Through a string of rebrands, from Google Apps to G Suite to Workspace, that experiment became a paid toolkit used by millions of businesses and schools.
Testing began on 10 February 2006, when Google hosted Gmail accounts on the college's own domain with tools to manage them. That August it launched Google Apps for Your Domain, a free beta bundling Gmail, Talk, Calendar and a simple page builder. A Premier Edition arrived in February 2007 for $50 per user a year, offering 10 GB of storage each, business integration and round-the-clock phone support, with Procter & Gamble among its early customers.
Pieces were added year by year. Sites for team intranets appeared in 2008, a plugin syncing Outlook data came in June 2009, and the core services dropped their beta labels the following month. A marketplace for third-party business apps opened in 2010, as did a version aimed at governments. Drive launched on 24 April 2012, giving each business user 5GB of space.
The free ride narrowed. From April 2011 organisations with more than ten users had to pay, with a flexible plan of $5 per user per month, and later in 2012 the free version closed to new customers altogether. Accounts left over from that era were told in January 2022 to upgrade or face suspension.
The names kept shifting as well. Google Apps became G Suite in September 2016, alongside a 55-inch cloud-connected whiteboard called Jamboard, and G Suite became Google Workspace in October 2020, with redesigned icons and tighter links between chat, documents and video calls. By October 2021 there were 9 million paying businesses, and generative AI features began reaching testers in March 2023.
Source: Google Workspace
