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I'm looking forward to what Google has up it's sleeve, I don't think this will turn the world on it's ear, but its fun to watch.
http://blogs.zdnet.com/Google/?p=957
It almost makes too much sense NOT to do. And if you want to hit Microsoft hit em at Exchange.
sent from: fav.or.it [FID75801]
I don't think this is a question of if Google is doing this but when. The enterprise market is opening again. Smart move by Google. Microsoft can not forever dominate the enterprise market as Google will not forever dominate search. To diversify at this point makes a lot of sense.
But I have dozens of employees who don't need a whole office suite just so they can write simple Word files. I don't think Google realizes how much they are asking of people to put corporate data "in the cloud" without an iron clad user agreement protecting that data.
If I could have Google Docs on my network locally I'd jump in a second. Gmail on the other hand doesn't excite me all that much.
btw - Yes I've considered Zoho but I'm sorry to say I don't have enough faith in the company's survival (and yes, I know that is a prophecy I'm helping to bring about by feeling that way but I'm not going to put my companies future on the line so I can do the right thing for Zoho)
Google can get away with a Search Appliance because Enterprise IT can place the appliance within the corporate network and it spiders and provides search results.
The same can not be same for applications.
Most large organizations have strict corporate policies about the location and management of corporate data. And most Web 2.0 applications are missing a large market by not providing their software as an installable product for Enterprise IT to purchase and manage internally.
Nobody's beaten Microsoft by trying to be Microsoft. Here's a little history lesson: http://www.wired.com/techbiz/media/news/1997/03... Schmidt didn't exactly execute on that Novell turnaround, I don't think he'll be able to pull much more off at Google.
If Novell spent as much effort on enhancing their core product as they did on redeveloping to incorporate Java or trying to be Microsoft, then they'd probably still enjoy the dominant position they held in the NOS space when Schmidt joined.
What's wrong with Google acknowledging their core competency and enhancing their search offering? Breaking into the enterprise application space to compete with Microsoft may be interesting from a competitive standpoint, to do it in a serious way, they run the risk of winding up like Novell.
Google snots went arrogant on iPhone too, lots of talk, before much action, seems half of Mountain-Dew View, better stop floating around in their Howard Rheingoldish lucid Mondo space-dreams, and plant feet on actual real terra firma.
Just think if all of Google Apps were available to run on the Foleo and could effortlessly sync up to their online counterpart.
My hunch is that the Foleo was ready about a year before Google was.
Could there have been any other explanation for Palm to have tried to bluff that their Foleo was the greatest gadget idea that Jeff had ever? Please! These guys aren't that dumb. They simply had to coverup a product that mis-launched. Wong timing doomed it.
That's my theory and I'm sticking too it!
As for the other, there's already hosted Exchange from a bunch of places at reasonable prices. There's even free hosted Exchange, though I think it's ad-supported.
What value would Google bring to the party? Free & ad supported? It's there already. Reasonably priced? Already exists too. All other things being equal, wouldn't your tendency be to go with "real" Exchange rather than a knock-off that will probably be in beta for the next few years?
An "Exchange Server appliance" doesn't seem to add up, either. Anyone who doesn't want to mess with administering an Exchange server, or fork over money for a server, will probably just buy a hosted service.
Now a Gmail hardware appliance, I guess I could see them coming out with that, but that's not the same thing as an Exchange server. You'd need calendaring, an address book, a directory service, free-busy, web access, an automatic update service for the inevitable vulnerabilities, etc. and even then it would be sort of a lame copy of Exchange...
It sort of makes sense if they partner with other companies to do that, that way, if it fails in the marketplace, they can always claim it wasn't really a Google product. (see Android, gOS)
But the fact that Apple is about to implement Exchange push email, contacts and calendaring for the iPhone? Yikes, I think Apple did a pretty good job at securing Exchange's position for years... not to mention driving a stake through the heart of RIM.
Meanwhile Google just finally got around to implementing IMAP...
Please keep in mind that only about half of Zoho actually even faces Google. Zoho has a very thriving offerings in CRM, Project Management & most recently Human Resource Management. We also provide a compelling web meeting solution, and an online application creator that is the most popular in its market.
While we face giants, we believe if we execute really well and keep customers happy, there is a market space for us. After all companies like Intuit have done well while facing Microsoft all their existence, because they serve their customer well. Even in markets where Microsoft has been absolutely dominant for a while, you look closer(OS - Apple is thriving, Linux taking off in a big way, Browsers - Firefox exploding in popularity ...) you find thriving vendors who execute well.
Thanks,
Sridhar
So now I use Gmail for email and G Calendar for appointments. Works great on the iPhone too. Recently started using Google Docs and Spreadsheets to replace Office.
I do worry a little about losing my Email, Docs and Spreadsheets if Google goes down but that seems fairly unlikely. I can also save whatever I want to my computer pretty easily.
Google Docs are fantastic for collaborating, far better than emailing Word docs with track-changes backwards and forwards.
And it's all free...
still, i'm all up for competition, maybe this time round they'll compete more equally with microsoft, instead of the google docs way of competing; you know, bad featureset, and an unhealthy tie-in when using gmail to send attachments.
Microsoft is trying to move more things online to compete with Google.
Google is trying to move more things to the desktop to compete with Microsoft.
What I really want is the most developed office suite, Microsoft Office, and an internal version of Live Office that I can run from within my network to service my mobile users. That's the killer set of apps.