Used to be companies could run Google Apps for Business for nothing for up to 50 users.

No more. Effective May 10, Google is lowering the bar to 10 users on new customers. Above that businesses are going to have to fork out $50 a user a year with a one-year commitment or $5 a head a month and no commitment.

The latter obviously costs more but it supposed to be good for companies with temporary workers.

Google claims it's raising prices so it can invest in new features for small businesses. Microsoft will start its basic Office 365 at $6 a month.

Google's also eliminating upfront payments on both the new Flexible and Annual plans and going to monthly utility billing with direct debit available in the US, UK, Austria, France, Germany, Italy, Netherlands and Spain.

Google claims three million business customers.

The pricing changes take effect for resellers in the "next few months," it said.

Qualified schools and non-profits are exempt.

Apparently it's got a new setup wizard that should provision a site in an hour.

Meanwhile, it's released a free version of Docs for Android 2.1 and above, so people can squint at documents and spreadsheets on their smartphones, create, edit and print them through Cloud Print.