Collaborative Strategy Guild » Google Apps Premier Edition

Google Beachhead

Karen Hobert — Mon, 20 Jul 2009 16:05:10 +0000

Google continues to bolster its beachhead on the enterprise email market. Today it announced it is providing free of charge to Google Apps Premier and Education customers a “plug-in” that will migrate Notes mail and personal directory information to Google Apps.

The new tool lets customers migrate mail, calendar and contacts from Notes to Google Apps. The syncing tool, which Google says is a native Notes application, can be installed and configured in less than 30 minutes, for multiple users at once. The tool has already been tested with 40 of Google’s enterprise clients, including JohnsonDiversey (10K users) and Valeo (32K users). The tool is free for Google Apps Premier and Educustomers.

The aggressive ramp up to enterprise-grade solutions hasn’t always been as successful as Google has hoped. Changing the mind-set of enterprise IT decision makers who tend to follow established software delivery methods and practices is still a hard practice. In recent weeks Google has capitulated to some of these customer attitudes such as removing the “beta” label from the Google Apps tools. The more clumsy release of the Google Apps Sync for Microsoft Outlook connector has been met with criticism for not offering pair-wise functionality with Outlook and disabling Microsoft Desktop Search, the search mechanism for Outlook. AJuly 10, 2009 PC World (IDG News Service) article puts it this way:

So Google embarked — probably grudgingly — down the path that other e-mail vendors have traveled with little success: trying to replicate the Outlook-Exchange experience with their back-end e-mail server and Outlook. Here was Google apparently getting dragged into the Microsoft way of doing things, creating — gasp! — a piece of PC software: an Outlook plug-in. The problems and complaints started immediately.

Right away, industry analysts cautioned CIOs and IT managers to examine the Google tool closely, warning them that it couldn’t fully replicate in Gmail thefunctionality of the Outlook-Exchange combination, lacking basic features like the ability to synchronize Outlook notes and tasks, for example.

A tough market indeed. Clearly Google wants it enough to put so much effort into lowering the barriers to enterprise interest. In its campaign to grease the migration skids and polish the consumer-come-enterprise perception Google is waging a fierce battle that will require formidable reinforcements to back up.

What’s in a Word?

Karen Hobert — Tue, 14 Jul 2009 17:29:49 +0000

Google has lifted the “beta” label from Gmail and other Google Apps, Google Calendar, Google Docs and Google Talk. Google makes it clear in its Official Google Blog announcement that they are making the move because enterprises are having a hard time getting around the “traditional definition” of the “beta” software label.

We’re often asked why so many Google applications seem to be perpetually in beta. For example, Gmail has worn the beta tag more than five years. We realize this situation puzzles some people,particularly those who subscribe to the traditional definition of “beta” software as not being yet ready for prime time.

I’m not sure Google ever did a good enough job of telling us what the non-traditional definition of beta is. Apparently it wasn’t all that hard to remove but I’m wondering why with so much press-bashing on the label it took Google so long to draw the line and say things are done. Google isn’t being as transparent on how it determined that the code is final, for now.

Of course this brings up the argument that I think Google has been trying to convince us of all along. That traditional software development cycles are impossible to keep with such rapid evolution of code and to draw a line in the sand would be ironic if they kept releasing new features on an ongoing basis. If that’s the case then “beta” should never have ended up in the logo to begin with. One of the benefits of a leased SaaS software delivery model is that the customer has the power to stay or go with little penalty. The onus is on the provider to continue to innovate to add more value for the customer at the same price. Google has embraced this concept by continually reminding its customers it can, and should, apply patches, changes, and upgrades whenever it feels the need. It’s “beta” cause the work is never done. Still convincing a market that is accustomed to “beta” meaning “test code” was harder than expected.

Oh, BTW, if you’re not comfortable without the “beta” (depending on how you define “beta”) you can put it back on the logo via the Gmail Labs settings:

Apples to Kumquats: Comparing Cloud Service Offerings

Karen Hobert — Mon, 20 Apr 2009 23:09:33 +0000

I recently read through a new Google Apps Premier Edition (GAPE) Partner Guide called 7 Keys to Comparing Google Apps Premier Edition with Microsoft Exchange Server 2007. Discrepancies and misdemeanors aside, the biggest problem I have with the piece is that it’s the wrong comparison if you want to sell Google Apps to customers. The piece is great collateral to demonstrate the differences between on-premises and hosted services but it does not say why way GAPE is say better than Microsoft Exchange Online.

To be fair, and not to single out Google, I’ve found that the collateral from major cloud computing vendors (including IBM and Microsoft) tend to do a pretty good job at presenting arguments in favor of cloud-based services versus on-premises deployments, but they tend to confuse the comparison as justification that their particular services are better than another vendor’s services. Wouldn’t the Google piece have more value if it were called 7 Keys to Comparing Google Apps Premier edition with Microsoft Exchange Online?

Of course cloud computing is the hot new item and currently represents a huge new promised land for enterprise computing; what if you could have all of the benefits of email without all the fuss? It’s like dating without commitments. In reality there are commitments and right now vendors see huge opportunities as long as they can get the huge economies of scale that make it all pay off. It’s big business.

Last week I blogged about a recent McKinsey report that shoots some holes into the cloud argument. My best advice to any customer is to consider these delivery models carefully and make strategic decisions according to thier unique business, technical, and security requirements. The real comparison is two-fold; is cloud computing a good choice for you, and which cloud offering will meet the needs of your firm?