Google extends its Gmail SLA for users of Google Apps Premier Edition to Google Calendar, Google Docs, Google Sites and Google Talk. The move, coming on the heels of more Gmail outages, is an attempt to provide Google's messaging and collaboration software users with assurances more on par with those for enterprise applications.

Google hedged its bets against SAAS downtime Oct. 30 by bringing the 99.99 percent uptime service-level agreement it offers Google Apps Premier Edition customers for Gmail to more Google Apps.

The SLA extension for Google Calendar, Google Docs, Google Sites and Google Talk applications comes after another Gmail outage beginning Oct. 15 crimped messaging and collaboration communications for some users. Google hosts its Apps for customers as part of its cloud computing strategy to lure customers from Microsoft and IBM.

Google doesn't announce how many users are affected in outages, but fewer than 0.003 percent of GAPE users were affected by the last Gmail outage, according to Matt Glotzbach, product management director for Google Enterprise. Given that hundreds of thousands of customers license GAPE for $50 per user, per year, that suggests a ballpark figure.

GAPE offers an SLA, greater security, 24/7 phone support and other perks unavailable in the standard edition of Google Apps, but today's SLA extension indicates the company is determined to decrease downtime among its applications. 

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