Google’s small but growing enterprise app business is now going for Microsoft’s jugular. At a press conference today (see Mike’s real-time notes), Google announced a new plug-in that will sync Google’s enterprise versions of Gmail, contacts, and calendar with Microsoft’s Outlook. In the enterprise, Outlook is still king and not everyone is ready to switch just yet to browser-based email, calendars and contact management.
So employees can continue to use Outlook if that is what they are comfortable with, and Google Apps will run on the backend. Google is claiming that its enterprise apps cost less than half of Microsoft Exchange (the server software that is paired with Outlook, where all the money is). The new syncing tool, Google App Sync, works only on Windows at this point and is only available for (paying) enterprise customers.
Steve Ballmer is not going to be happy about this.
Ok – great. But when is Google going to come with push email/sync through Active Sync (or anything else) for the iPhone?? This is becoming ridiculous. It’s all over the place (including Palm Pre) but not on the iPhone.
I’m guessing that email push will come with the release of iPhone OS 3.0.
Google might be counting its steps to ambush Microsoft with something big. Apps releases are just a couple of punches for now and then…here and there, but something big would probably drop at once, for example, a cloud operating system. Is it likely? It might just be my paranoid…
Microsoft will easily disable sync services if it get the request from Google. They just disable it in the next hot fix.
I don’t think MS wants that kind of publicity right now.
It is pushing hard to get more “open”, at least to have a more “collaborative” image. It’s not gonna do that kind of stupid move.
I still don’t buy Google on the enterprise. I’m not a fan of gmail at all. I use it, but for really specific things with only a few people. Hotmail is where my heart is at.
Please tell me you’re kidding.
Gmail is superior in every way. Hotmail doesn’t even auto-save! It doesn’t even warn if you accidentally click back while composing a message — losing everything. It’s a total disaster from top to bottom.
How much do you get paid by Microsoft to make such ridiculous statements?
LOL…hotmail…???
LOL
I’ll take MICROSOFT products over Google anyday. Microsofts technology is superior on every level. Although Microsoft has been hated by many over the years, and loved by those who became rich with it, it is still number 1 with millions+ all over the world. Google is still very young and has a lot to learn. While investors make money from it’s pinnacle right now, it won’t last as long as Microsoft…and rightly so.
I agree. Even the line: Server, IIS, SQL, browser alone and it’s evolution through the years would be enough to be considered superior. I’m not even talking about the OS and Office suite.
..have you actually used Outlook? It’s really rough around the edges, and terribly slow.
I really miss Conversation view when I’m forced to use Outlook at work.
Conversation view sucks. I wish there was a way to turn it off.
conversation view is available in outlook since forver
Very slow, yes. Rough around the edges? Not so much – at least in 2007 it isn’t.
LMAO!!!
send me tips on how to avoid blue screens, crashing, viruses and malware on windows then please. you seem to be avoiding them in your MS nirvana
I don’t know if it applies to a lot of people, but where I work, there is two kind of people :
1. people who decide which software we buy, who love Microsoft.
2. People who actually *use* the software, who hate Microsoft.
That’s kinda funny… it’s pretty much the opposite where I work.
1. People who decide which software to buy, who hate Microsoft (and for some WEIRD reason, prefer IBM software…)
2. People who actually *use* the software, who would pray to the god(s) of your choice to be using Microsoft (or anything other than this IBM garbage…)
Wow…
Hopefully this will make it through to the standard version at some point.
@Sharon
I agree with you. The market penetration and the product range of Microsoft any day beats Google!
Progress, so when will we be able to synchronize an Android phone directly without Outlook (or free synchronization from Outlook to gmail with contacts and calendar)? That’s the only think keeping many of us from looking at the G1 and android more closely.
Going for Microsoft’s jugular?
Until you start talking about major enterprises — those with thousands of seat licenses — that are switching from Outlook/Exchange to a Google-based back-end, this is just nipping at the heels.
Plus, a huge chunk of money is in those client licenses. So, all this does is ensure that users keep their existing client — which MS still gets as a seat license.
For Outlook?
this just shows the decline of google. instead of concentrating on their market; they’ve been dong nothing except pissing all around the computer industry creating needless products for nobody.
they’re just a search engine; and, b/c they don’t concentrate on that; will probably loose that business some day.
“they’re just a search engine” — this is potentially the funniest thing I have heard in 17 years of enterprise business consulting.
I have been trying out this application too which is a downloaded add on for Outlook called Office Synch that came out recently. It creates a toolbar in Outlook so one more way to reach the cloud I think, although this looks to go a bit beyond where the add on provides.
http://ducknetw...ice-add-on.html
Whatever. It has to be better than ConnectR….
“Let users choose their interface” – oh my, Google is so much not getting the corporate space.
It is not about choice, freedom or flexibility. It is about defined workflows, control, security and – by far most important – risk avoidance. All what this slide screams is risk, risk, RISK!
Zimbra is far better than Exchange and Google Apps. Also it’s open source and platform independent, provides seamless integration with Outlook or any other client without any additional plugin running on top of outlook.
With this new Outlook Sync tool for Outlook and OffiSync for word, excel and powerpoint you can really get the best of both worlds, Google as the engine in the back-end and MS Office on your desktop.
@Sharon & Sympathizers… We’ve been using google apps and gmail in our “enterprise” for about 3 months now. It’s solid and FAAAAAST. Microsoft, not so much.. No more waiting for Outlook to Sync so you can read email.
Talk to some people who’ve been cursed with administering and supporting Microsoft’s antiquated licensing scheme. Talk to people who have to pay $500.00/per support incident to get MS to own up to its shabby work. Talk to someone who has LITERALLY been on a support call for more than 24 hours to fix Exchange so that his entire company didn’t lose all their mail because MS can’t write a solid database backend…. Oh… wait, that would be me…
I’ll give it to MS for innovating in a time when no one else was doing the same thing. But they abused that power consistently and THAT’s why they have so many enemies in the field, including me. You can keep your outdated Office apps and you can keep paying $600/seat for it, but don’t be surprised when the rest of the IT world moves to the cloud and leaves you to your crashing, corrupted, excel spreadsheets and bloated Word documents….
With that said, I’d be happy if MS made just one thing (which they seemingly have done well,) Visio….
@David Marcus – iPhone has activesync for calendar and contacts, but mail is still missing. So the work around is to use an imap account for mail and activesync for contacts and calendar. It’s not as sweet as it could be, but its pretty darn close.
Try talking to someone who spent weeks trying to contact Google when Gmail and Google Apps when down during critical hours.
Turns out that Gmail doesn’t provide personalized support. They fix your problem whenever you damn well feel like it.
GApps is cheap for a reason: the value and quality of the service is reflected in the price you pay.
Hi Joel,
In reply to your last statement about you’d be happy if Microsoft made one thing well….Microsoft has done numerous ground breaking things including BING which will be more than everyone expects after all is said and done. Natal introduced at E3 recently will REVOLUTIONIZE gaming! Worldwide telescope and photosynthe and are just 2 more of Microsofts fabulous technologies. And all you can gripe about is Outlook? And by the way, Microsoft is a big player in the cloud already.
I can’t believe anyone who truly takes their business seriously would consider deploying Google Apps.
We REALLY considered moving to Google Apps
After a feasibility study we realized that lack of proper BB email support and no global address book on mobiles are deal breakers.
Haven’t they fixed the BB problem? They have some sync app you can download….
You cannot give for free what MS have developed over many years. Exchange and Outlook are the staple diet of any business. That may not be ideal but let’s deal with it. Love what Google are doing but I doubt very much that they have all the background bells and whistles that we oft forget but cannot do without
Hum, do I need the professional version?
Outlook is already slow. This shouldn’t need any local software to be installed and slow things down even more. I should be able to use any version of outlook, and connect to gmail’s servers and gmail respond like it was an exchange server.
I am doubtful this release will get very far. But if they did it right, and emulated an exchange server, they would quickly be able to take market share away from Microsoft.
I am hopeful that they change their strategy. Until then, I’ll be on Outlook+Exchange. The day they can emulate an exchange server, I’ll switch.
Interesting, can’t wait for more details. If it’s cheap way to replace exchange and if google will keep your info private and not data mine it it could be worth while for a lot of small companies.
brilliant move. I am not sure google really wants microsoft’s enterprise business. but this is a helluva way of keeping microsoft busy on its own turf so the search biz is safe. as they say, offense is the best form of defense….
An Add-in for outlook… Another way for Google to get users info and sell advertising?
Microsoft doesn’t lose anything with companies still requiring Outlook client licenses. If and when they move to Gmail webUI, that’s when it starts to hurt Microsoft.
nice one google
Product A sucks! Product B is so much better!
And don’t tell me that I am a n00b and haven’t heard of Product C.. I have used it and I don’t like it!
Plus, Product B works great on OS A… good luck trying to run Product A on OS A, when it was written for OS B.
Product B is so old school. While I agree that Products A and C are junk, you really should check out Product D. It’s open-blahblah and cross-blahblah and works on blah, blah, and blah.
(Your original comment made me giggle, so this is my lame attempt to contribute.
)
1990 called… they want their email client back!
Outlook is to email as Internet Explorer is to browsers.
Hint: it’s crap-ware. Sorry… it’s crap-ware that you have to pay for.
Get email everywhere, every platform, anytime. I can’t believe this devolved into a comparison.
And yes, I have installed/maintained Exchange servers for years. Clients who I’ve switched to hosted Gmail have rejoiced.
Step forth into the new millennium people. The view is nice up here!
And I thought I only had such conversations with my mother, and people who have to buy a new digital TV antenna because their analog ‘rabbit ears’ no longer work.
Amen!
Outlook, Exchange, the whole paradigm is out of date. Email was the cloud, before there was a cloud. The first “killer app” of ubiquitous TCP/IP.
We are just seeing the beginning of the innovation – catch up – if you will. Imagine where all of these technologies are going to be a year from now. Companies who make the right bets early on cloud will have substantial savings, be more nimble, and positioned well vs. competitors when a recovery eventually starts.
I want to pull from an exchange server into gmail, when is that coming out? Seems like a lot better idea to me.
http://www.goog...apple/sync.html
I would love to switch, but would want to know that Google offered tech support at least half as good as Intermedia’s. Somehow I doubt they do.
But big-G will win anyway. MS let Exchange waste away, waiting years to promote hosted versions, failing to make Outlook the file/sync system. Now they will reap the fruit of stagnation.
Many incumbents have several or many great products at one time or the other, but many also ignore market needs, frustrating customers and users. Or when they innovate, they do a mixed effort ending up with a decent job, or a silly and sloppy job. Incumbents also get arrogant, and stifle, strangle and suffocate invention.
At the moment, and for quite a while, Microsoft is in that position. While Hotmail had a unique USP when it started, Microsoft didn’t innovate and didn’t know how to handle it. I lost my account – without flinching, Microsoft took away my account because I had not logged in for three months. For all that time, I was still using a variety of Microsoft products – its just that I hadn’t logged into my account. 2 years of my important emails were confiscated and dumped in cold storage somewhere. Worse, so many emails went to the new account holder, who like Microsoft did not have the good sense to warn the senders. I would have expected a market ‘leader’ to tar it into a tape for me for a charge. In the least, a real leader would do that.
Hotmail was worst because they never increased storage, and they did not allow large attachments. Shouldn’t Microsoft, the market leader hace known what its users want? It probably did, but Microsoft never cares until it is threatened. And then, it makes hodge-podge efforts making you madder as hell.
Anyone who thinks Hotmail is better than gmail is not credible. You would have to ignore a lot of trends and historic data to bestow the crown on Hotmail.
And look at Outlook. Microsoft product managers, thinking they own the market forever, make so many versions. Anyone knows that an Express User has similar needs to a person using Enterprise Outlook version. In fact, the same person would end up using 2 different versions of Outlook in the same day depending on whether he/she is at work or at home or at their small business.
The Segmentation of the market into umpteen different and artificially disjoint segments is absurd. Look at versions of Vista: Home, Premium..Ultimate. Aren’t people mobile? Is it a surprise that they go from networking environment to networking environment?
The whole idea that lan-based networking capability in Vista is worth $150 more than a non-networked version is arrogant and egregious.
Why can’t we just have one version of everything? Do we have the time to titillate ourselves with the minutia of Windows versions?
Windows is just like the Tax code in terms of complexity.
Look at the beauty of the open source community. Look at architecture of Firefox and its wonderful extensions.
What I am really mad about is that many other software vendors who were cry-babies pointing a finger at Microsoft, ended up doing similar corrupt or defunct business practices.
And where was Scott McNeally and his whiz-bang techs? They had great opportunities to right the world for decades but instead languished in the wind and settled for more bark than bite.
So, thank you Google for kicking really butt! Carry on!!
Bill Gates is a great humanistic role model, but Microsoft is not.
There is still a long way ahead for google.
MAPI connectors and related add-ons from CommuniGate, Zimbra, etc… all have their place. All of them are attacking the per seat price of Exchange.
Google has taken this back into their Apps cloud vs. the other ISV’s that assume a silo or hosted sale.
There are specific Outlook/Exchange features that have no direct mapping (from a user perspective) in either an ISV or Google Apps substitute. example: public folders, etc.
The limitations on these connectors is that a published list of “issues” and “known bugs” are the only things that prevent a en masse migration from Exchange. Oddly enough, these specific features that are lacking are often used the least in an organization.
So much for “lock in”.
one way Google is developing Wave and claiming that email world is going to change and on another day they just want to emulate (Outlook+Exchange) which users got since 90s. Are they really sure about Google Wave and their so called path breaking systems. Better for Google to be a search and map company. I love G Maps
@Erick Schonfeld: I like the way you come up with these things..’going for Microsoft’s jugular.’ And now I’m reminded of that great battle scene in ‘The Call of the WIld.’
I think everyone here has made some good points but fails to realize how Google built its empire this far.
They don’t want to go directly after the Company’s with 1000+ users and replace their Exchange setups. But more so go after the ones with 10 to a few hundred users who need an exchange solution and can not afford to build and maintain said exchange solution. Someone mentioned zimbra which is a great solution all in itself however you still need to employ someone savvy enough to manage and maintain this solution.
I found the guys that did integration of MS Office with google docs.
http://www.upriseapps.com/
Word and Excel 2007 are already supported. Pretty simple solution but it has made me happy)
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Una excelente opcion de sincronización. Google aporta con su inventiva mejoras a los recursos de trabajo.