Google Apps Team Edition Released

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1. Tom
   

   February 6th, 2008 at 10:21 pm

   Quiz Question: What’s the easiest way to piss off your IT Department at work?

   Quiz Answer: Use unauthorized software and encourage your fellow co-workers to do the same

   Quiz Question: What’s the easiest way for a company to alienate IT managers around the world

   Quiz Answer: Encourage corporate users to do an end run around their IT department and use unauthorized software

   Here’s the thing, some day Google is going to have to seriously target the corporate market. That’s where the real money is in IT and that is the easiest place for them to get money when the Ad business starts to slow down. They clearly already realize this because they’ve already started making inroads (Google Search Box for example).

   Right now Google Apps is not acceptable for 90% of corporate users. Most companies either won’t or by law can’t put their data on Google’s servers. Especially when Google’s user agreement basically says they aren’t responsible for anything that might happen to that data.

   Google’s best bet is to get Google Apps to a point where it’s a mature product and then sell it as a device ala the Google Box.

   But to try to appeal to users at this juncture and royally piss off IT buyers is about as stupid a move as Google can make. People have long memories in this field and Corporate Search isn’t as hard as Internet Search so Google’s superior technology doesn’t mean much. If Google chooses to push this now I think they can expect a lot of cold shoulders in the corporate world and since their corporate products are only marginally better than Microsoft and others that means lost revenue.

2. mlc
   

   February 6th, 2008 at 10:24 pm

   pretty poor assumption if they think “team” is people who share the same email alias. kinda throws the whole benefit of the ‘distributed’ internet out the window. Gotta start somewhere I suppose…and knowing Google it will probably be in BETA for a few years

3. Logan
   

   February 6th, 2008 at 10:32 pm

   Google really is trying to reach as many different types of people as possible. Convenience sells almost anything.

4. Dheeraj Sultanian
   

   February 6th, 2008 at 10:50 pm

   @Tom - best comment on techcrunch in a long long time

   http://www.infosupply.com

5. more tomato sauce please
   

   February 6th, 2008 at 11:10 pm

   Small, entrepreneurial businesses remain the diversified backbone of American business. These businesses don’t have big lame corporate IT departments that rule over them. Worldwide, this is even more true.

   Tom - good analysis, but they don’t have to be in the server room of a fortune 500 company to be successful, although, when they are, the will be more successful. But to mlc - I do agree, too bad you have to have the same @ address on your email. There are many groups I would like to use google apps for where people have different email addresses.

6. Tom
   

   February 6th, 2008 at 11:39 pm

   @Dheeraj – Thanks

   @more tomato sauce - I don’t necessarily disagree with you but I’d make a few points. I have some experience with this in that I spent my school years doing on-site computer work for a computer store whose customers were almost exclusively companies with less than 10 PCs. So I know the demographic pretty well. That said, I’d make a few points…
   First, Google is clearly targeting large companies with this. The whole “search for people in your domain” thing makes that clear. I think this would be a good idea if they were aiming it at home users (families for example)

   This brings me to my second point which is that small business users are essentially home users. When you have a small company you are basically using the same technology as a home user and making use of things like Google Apps to get by on the cheap.

   Finally, my point above was that Google was alienating the big spenders in IT which was stupid. That’s still true. There may very well be more PCs used in small businesses around the world than there are in big companies (I honestly don’t know one way or the other) but most of the IT money is still spent by large companies. The reason for that is that the big ticket items come in when you start connecting large numbers of users. E-Mail servers, intranets, search utilities, etc… are all exclusive to big to mid-size companies. So when Google tries to make money off IT they’re not going to be looking to small business.

7. Walter
   

   February 7th, 2008 at 12:04 am

   So, is everyone with a *@gmail.com address now part of a large “team”!? ;-P

8. Boilermaker
   

   February 7th, 2008 at 1:20 am

   If you care, you can get rid of the ugly border around the embedded video by removing ‘&border=1′ from value and src attributes of the embed code.

9. Martin Owen
   

   February 7th, 2008 at 1:21 am

   I work in a number of distributed international teams. I used to run my own FirstClass server to serve those teams. Yes, I upset the corporate IT people - but then they were also unwilling to provide a service that linked and provided access to external partners - they deserved to be upset for their motto “Information Service- no information, no service”. After all these outsiders (ie clients, co-workers…) may cause Y2K problems - which was their sole obsession.

   I know work in a corporation of 2, with worldwide co-workers. Whereas NING and similar provide something that is useful - having real groupware that really lerts us do real tasks together is invaluable. We do not want to pay corporate prices for this.

   My current challenge is creating a demonstration of lowest cost, lowest tech, technology support for distance education in Africa. I will figure a way to subvert the single domain issue. I look forward to Googe revolutionising mobile phones soon too.

   I do not mind Google’s aspiration to make money from advertising or corporations - they are good guys if they let “the rest of us” play with the tools for free.

10. Nathan
    

    February 7th, 2008 at 1:28 am

    At first glance it appears that Google’s target audience with this launch is their own product teams.

11. Dempsey
    

    February 7th, 2008 at 1:36 am

    “Quiz Question: What’s the easiest way to piss off your IT Department at work?

    Quiz Answer: Use unauthorized software and encourage your fellow co-workers to do the same”

    Sorry to post off topic, but I burst into laughter at this. Tom, do you realize that the main reason why IE is still the main browser used on the Internet is because Firefox is “unauthorized software.” From my experience with IT Departments: if they say not to do it, then it must be a good idea.

    Sorry if that offends.

12. William L. Weaver
    

    February 7th, 2008 at 4:23 am

    “Quiz Question: Anybody old enough to recall filling out request forms for mainframe compute time? … and finding that 3 - 4 am two weeks from now was often the only time available?”

    “Quiz Question: Anybody old enough to recall pissing off IT by purchasing a microcomputer and crunching your own FORTRAN code without IT writing it?”

    History doesn’t repeat, but it often rhymes…

13. RAD
    

    February 7th, 2008 at 7:21 am

    Given that the time of your post is 4:23 AM, I assume that you are still used to the 3-4 AM time slot…

    IT at universities is a somewhat different beast. Service to admin and teaching sides are usually mutually exclusive in the sense that “corporate” admin needs are often far different from teaching with technology needs. This plays out (or will, more and more) as decisions about what productivity apps should students be fluent in - Microsoft of google - will soon be commonplace in academia.

14. Will Merydith
    

    February 7th, 2008 at 7:46 am

    I second this response to Tom (the first poster):

    “Small, entrepreneurial businesses remain the diversified backbone of American business. These businesses don’t have big lame corporate IT departments that rule over them. Worldwide, this is even more true.”

    My startup uses Google Apps and it works very well for us. I don’t miss the lethargic, outsourced IT department that I had to pull teeth with at my last “corporate” job.

    Tom you’re simply out of touch or worried about your job in the aging dinosaur that is MSFT centric IT

15. Tom
    

    February 7th, 2008 at 8:20 am

    @Dempsey - Actually, I don’t consider Firefox that big a deal, I’ve always been surprised by IT managers who were vehemently opposed to it. But there’s a huge difference between an alternate web browser and actually putting corporate documents on another companies server (especially when that company isn’t willing to guarantee security of any kind)

    @William - The issue isn’t the user pissing off their IT department its Google causing the user to piss of their IT department. Put it this way, Google can make money in two ways. By getting corporate users to use Google Apps as is and make money off revenue or by selling these apps to corporations. But if Google pisses IT departments off they’ll find that (a) IT departments can block Google apps (bye bye revenue source one) and (b) that IT departments won’t be interested in Google anymore (bye bye revenue source two)

    @Will - That very well may be true…now. But Startups go one of two ways: They either fail, or the get bigger and are forced to develop big, lethargic IT departments of their own.

16. rubu
    

    February 7th, 2008 at 8:29 am

    I know work in a corporation of 2, with worldwide co-workers. Whereas NING and similar provide something that is useful - having real groupware that really lerts us do real tasks together is invaluable. We do not want to pay corporate prices for this.

17. Rajan Tawate
    

    February 7th, 2008 at 11:01 am

    Whover wants to make their corporate documents searchable over the internet to the whole world.

    Vow.. corporate privacy is so out of fashion now.

    Rajan Tawate

18. Carlo Maglinao
    

    February 7th, 2008 at 11:44 am

    Google apps marketing should also use Gmail for growth. http://tinyurl.com/2tclkn

19. Velioncho
    

    February 7th, 2008 at 8:48 pm

    Google is a hyped-up company. Only good product they have is “search” and its ad sense. Google maps and earth are wow products when they arrived but now comptetion is pretty close. Everything else are high school projects done by a good student. Gmail is good but is it wow, no? is Google Docs a wow ? it is a “wow” in negative sense. Is Google talk a wow? no.

    There is no google magic now. I really really hope yhoo and MSFT merger goes thru, and that will tell where exactly google stands.

    Currently the are given too much importance by media,analysts and investors. Google is able to hide all of its incompetence just because there is huge gap between them and the 2nd. There are so many failure products from Google. Their stock is worth at these levels only if it still shows “wow” magic which was lost longtime ago.

20. Frenkie
    

    February 7th, 2008 at 11:40 pm

    Hey this is really coool.

    Bravoooo Google.

    You finally gave us the applications that we are using since Windows 95.

    I cant wait to see what is next.

21. Bill
    

    February 8th, 2008 at 2:34 am

    I think Tom is right and its not just the IT managers who will be pissed off - it goes higher. This is an example of some IT guys (in Google) not doing enough product requirements testing unless this really is aimed at Mom and Pop companies. While small businesses may be the backbone of America, the large corporate is America’s (and Google’s) revenue. These corporations are all public companies (as are many of the smaller ones) and in a post-Enron environment are all subject to SOX legislation which makes it imperative that companies know how information is used and represented externally. That’s why email is retained. Spreadsheets and word processing documents constitute a type of information that has to be fall within the compliance processes. Anything that is an end run around this control risks putting the CEO and CFO behind bars. So one reason the IT managers will be pissed off is that their bosses and their bosses bosses (who really control the purse strings) will be pissed off. Would you be enthusiastic about your colleagues using a product that could lead to you doing time. No, probably not.

22. Jonathan Dickinson
    

    February 8th, 2008 at 4:44 am

    Haha!!! Sharepoint!!! Go Google! I am sick and tired of the closed-ness of sharepoint!!!

23. ChrisB
    

    February 8th, 2008 at 7:29 am

    Tom where you are wrong is your last comment about search. Search sucks at just about every company I’ve seen. no one has meta tags on their documents, few have meta databases, no one knows where anything is. Knowledge sharing doesn’t happen at all. Most estimates of developer time spent researching put it at anywhere between 50% and 70%! That’s me, a senior developer, getting paid over half my time to google for solutions to problems. That’s our job.

    Look how many times we reinvent the wheel in our jobs.

    Having better searches, relevant search results, to our fingers faster is a huge win for whoever can do it right. I’m putting a SharePoint solution in place at my current company, and the biggest thing is search: all this great information the business creates, and in IT all these little IT projects and solutions to business problems are out there, but no one knows where.

24. GH
    

    February 8th, 2008 at 7:39 am

    Google apps (docs anyway) is still immature almost to the point of being a hyped-up novelty. Yes, it’s convenient… but what if your users need a pivot table in a spreadsheet? Supposing someone needs to get information OUT of GDocs and needs the format of the output content to marginally resemble what they put in? Sorry, it just doesn’t happen. I can see GDocs creating a wall between power users (using Excel or Calc) and basic users (GDocs) in an organization through which information does not easily flow. Information barriers between collaborators are never a good thing.
    It’s easy for small companies to adopt new systems, because size often affects agility. It will be interesting to see how well those early adopters fare when they realize that they need far more functionality than GDocs can provide… because down the road a migration to a more powerful platform will be far more expensive and painful.
    It’s not the SOX factor that keeps IT managers from adopting Google Apps, it’s the SUX factor.

25. ELG
    

    February 8th, 2008 at 8:10 am

    “Corporate Search isn’t as hard as Internet Search so Google’s superior technology doesn’t mean much”

    Corporate Search is exponentially harder than internet search. Corporate (Enterprise) search involves unstructured documents like excel spreadsheets, word documents, data in databases, email etc, and are not linked together neatly like on the web. (making pagerank useless)
    So not only is it a much harder challenge to index this data, but to give it relevance and meaning takes very advanced technology.
    Companies like Autonomy are leading the way in enterprise search, and Google is only a new entry to the field and is way behind the curve, and only relying on marketing and branding, not technology.

26. Adam Ramsey
    

    February 8th, 2008 at 10:36 am

    I’m interested to see if they evolve the suite to be a distro that could be run as a server app. That way you’re not relying on them to manage your data as you could store it locally or wherever your storage may be, while still saving the 4gb (guesstimating) of hard drive space on each client for the latest release of Office.

27. webmoney
    

    February 11th, 2008 at 8:28 am

    I have a strange habit to register in all Google services…

28. teddy
    

    February 19th, 2008 at 8:44 am

    so what´s the benefit against the standard edition?
    I didn´t test Team Edition, but as far as I see:
    standard: Create account and send invitation
    team edition: Set password, linked to an account and send invitation.

    But
    - no corporate domainname
    - no domainforwarding
    - No possibility to collaborate with people from other domains (within the same company)

    So who would use it? Companies whose members can´t remember their E-Mail domainsuffix? Companies without a corporate Website?
    I think, Google is great keeping tools as simple as possible but still being useful. This time it doesn´t work. Maybe it´s just marketing.

29. Ryan
    

    March 3rd, 2008 at 2:33 pm

    Google has been successfully be creating products that are simple to use and reliable. They create products that users eventually feel they can’t live without. What they have done with Google apps is something that has not been done before. My medium sized consulting company uses Sharepoint for documentation repository, Mailstreet as the Exchange provider, NetSuite for time and sales reporting. With Google apps, it can all be done in one place. Google allows the creation of API’s that make it scalable.

    Tom, If you as an IT manager are concerned about employees using Google Apps to store corporate information, then your IT company should block the use of the site.