I recently visited Google in London for the second time to hear more about Google Apps for enterprise use. This time I was with a group of CIOs who were on a mission to see if Google could be an alternative to their current solutions. I was surprised to see how little had actually happened since we last visited them in January 2009.
Just like last time, Google did a great job explaining all the strengths and benefits of cloud computing and how Google Apps could (will?) change the way of working. The main arguments were the ones already familiar to most:
- You don’t have to do all the boring maintenance yourself, meaning server staff can get new and more exciting tasks
- The security and reliability is much better because we [Google] have enormous, dedicated and protected data centres combined with the needed expertise
- You will save money, e.g. on licenses, maintenance, hardware, upgrading etc.
- You can appeal to new (younger) staff and position your organisation as innovative
- Training is barely needed. People know and use the stuff at home.
Seen through my contact lenses there are still some major concerns which seem to suggest that enterprise adoption has longer term prospects.
- Legal issues: It is still not possible to obtain a national (e.g. Danish) contract with Google. This means you will embark into a legal grey zone with your local legal requirements on the one side and Google’s terms & conditions on the other side
- Integration: Everybody has a bunch of different systems that need to be integrated. While much could probably be done via the Apps Script and APIs, there were still no convincing solutions for how to integrate to e.g. an existing records management tool
- Actual license savings: When large enterprises buy solutions from a large vendor, they receive bulk discounts. When certain parts of an enterprise-wide contract are cancelled, the price of the other individual parts goes up. If you are a full blown Microsoft .NET house running Windows, SharePoint, Office, Exchange, Dynamics and BizTalk, cancelling the Office and Exchange licenses will probably be costly and difficult, as it will affect the general licence negotiations
- Power users: Most complex enterprises have specialised people who are power users of Excel, Word or Outlook. These will hardly be satisfied by the offerings from Google Apps, meaning that IT administrators will have to support two overlapping platforms. However, the money saved on licences could outweigh the resources spent on supporting two platforms
- User rights: Public organisations have strict legal requirements regarding who can access the data. The ability to manage user rights in Google Apps is still not granular enough to handle complex demands
- Partners: While Google has goodwill, they are still primarily focused on consumers and end users – not enterprises. It is advisable to work with a partner, who can provide professional support and where you will be a key account. Google addressed this earlier by rolling out a partner reseller programme. However, the actual list of partners is still very limited
- References: Enterprise users of Google Apps are still few and between. The official GoogleAtWork Twitter-feed often lists new adopters, but almost all of them are from the education sector
Google has recently launched a big (and for the company non-typical) PR campaign urging enterprises to “Go Google“. However, it will take more than an ad campaign for Google to start being considered a real enterprise alternative. On the other hand, budgets are getting tighter, and according to the August issue of Wired a Good Enough Revolution is taking place.
Is Google good enough?
Thanks to @adambindslev & @hoejdahl for valuable input.
Gary Chervitz October 2nd, 2009 13:25
Google Apps are Good Enough. If you consider the Pareto Rule (80% of users utilize 20% of the software features/functions) then the Google Apps offering works for the masses. It is easy to access, easy to setup and maintain and easy to get desired results for nearly all but the at most 20% of the power user community.
Google Labs appears to be doing a fine job of adding thoughtful features and functionality along the way that do not intrude on personal efficiency or otherwise require the same degree of internal administration and retraining effort that has typically accompanied legacy-style office automation applications.
And…don’t even get me started on all the whining about stability. An objective comparison of efficiencies between legacy workstation installed applications versus Google Apps will reveal that the latter is the clear winner.
søren nielsen October 6th, 2009 13:25
Good article.
Gary: I definitely do not consider google to be good enough just yet. They may be good at mail (except stuff like calendar delegation, important for CEOs) but google docs is really too basic.
Many of the existing spreadsheet circling the average large corporation cannot be worked with in google docs.
Doing the ancient time calculation for office users might be a convincing argument, 10 min wasted a day because of a browser client * 300 days a year * 10000 employees = a fortune.
And what about offline? I do work from my laptop in transit and other places without a network. I’ve tested gears and it is quite far from mature and very unreliable.
Tom Smith October 6th, 2009 13:25
GOOD ENOUGH REVOLUTION – With all due respect to the many experienced and talented writers and tech folks what continues to amaze me when people look at Google Apps is they completely forget it includes an entire component that premise based software doesn’t – an “Operating System”. You simply can not compare it to Office or any other single device, premise based environment – it’s a total Bananas (don’t want to put Apple in this mix!) and Oranges deal.
People expect to be able to compare Google Does Word Processing and Spreadsheet to MS Office WORD or EXCEL. The comparison is not even remotely close – the MS Office products are magnitudes more feature rich BUT you can’t get to them from any global PC you happen to be sitting at. You can’t simply and easily share them with a friend and do all the 100′s of things the invisible OS component you get with Google Apps allows you to do.
I don’t think it is a matter of “good enough” I think it is a matter of “what do I need” – the good enough aspect IMPLIES that we need what we have. Well we don’t always need what has been created for us! We only need what is necessary to get our task done – that doesn’t mean “good enough” it means it is “spot on”.
Niels Kleberg October 7th, 2009 13:25
Had a look. Not going Google.
Why? Well I think the applications are not rich and immersive enough from a user standpoint. Being from Denmark I have no good access to assitance which keeps me from going enterprise. And then there is another little thing. I’m not sure I’m comfortable with all the information they gather about me, and how it is utilized. Not comfortable at all.
What does work? Search. Good. Maps! Very good. Wave, can’t wait! I’m seriously thinking about leaving Outlook on an enterprise level and go waving.
JON HAUGEN October 8th, 2009 13:25
Tom Smith wrote:
“the MS Office products are magnitudes more feature rich BUT you can’t get to them from any global PC you happen to be sitting at. You can’t simply and easily share them with a friend and do all the 100’s of things the invisible OS component you get with Google Apps allows you to do.”
Tom, you’re absolutely right – today. But as you may have seen, Microsoft is launching Ofice Web Apps, being integrated into Skydrive, Office Live, Live Mesh and so on. A technical preview of that solution is available today, on Skydrive. The technical preview has support for viewing Word documents with FULL fidelity for .DOC and .DOCX, and you can also edit Excel Spreadsheets and PowerPoint presentations and collaborate with others live. Test it out on http://skydrive.live.com/ today. All you need is to log in with your Live ID or sign up for one as you start using SkyDrive.
Also, if you’re interested – you can read how Neil McAllister of InfoWorld regards three of the online productivity suites available – Google Docs, Zoho, and Office Web Apps – in this article: http://www.infoworld.com/d/applications/office-suites-in-cloud-microsoft-office-web-apps-versus-google-docs-and-zoho-726?page=0,4&r=798
Let me remind everybody that the Office Web Apps is in “Technical Preview” – which is a pretty early beta version of what’s coming in the near future.
JON HAUGEN
Microsoft Denmark