Microsoft and Google have seen their rivalry kicked up a notch in recent weeks. First, Google announced Chrome OS, the company’s first operating system. Then Microsoft announced the new version of Office with major cloud app support. Then Microsoft announced its deal to take over Yahoo’s search business. Starting today, Google is back on the offensive, with a major promotional campaign to get the word out about organizations switching to Google apps for their daily computing needs.
The campaign, called “Going Google,” has a very clear target: Microsoft Office. A series of advertisements [disclosure: including on this blog] will begin touting how and why some 3,000 organizations are signing up to use Google apps each day. But the crown jewels of this campaign will be billboards on four major U.S. highways that will give a new message about Google apps everyday for a month.
The billboards will be placed on the 101 in San Francisco, the West Side Hwy in New York, the Ike in Chicago, and Mass Pike in Boston. Google says that the vinyl being used to create these new messages each day will be recycled or reused into either computer bags or shopping bags.
Google says that so far over 1.75 million businesses, schools and organizations have signed up to use the various combinations of Gmail, Google Calendar, Google Docs and the other Google apps. But that is of course a drop in the bucket compared to the number of companies that use Microsoft Office and its other enterprise solutions. Now, Google is clearly trying to be proactive in telling people why its solution is better before Office goes online in a big way with the 2010 version.
Google is also attempting to use the viral message platform of choice these days to spread the “Going Google” message: Twitter. At the bottom of its blog post on the matter, Google urges people that use its apps to “Tweet your story” and provides a link to auto-populate a tweet with the #gonegoogle hashtag. You can also follow the GoogleAtWork Twitter account to follow the Gone Google stories.
It has also set up a site to “Spread the word” about Going Google. This is similar to what Mozilla has long been doing to promote Firefox — and it’s worked to the tune of over a billion downloads. The site has a range of options for letting your company or organization know that you want it to “Go Google,” including things like fliers and pre-populated emails to send out.
And Google is also promising to give away “goodies” each week in August to users who have Gone Google and fill out a Google Doc describing their experience.
Will any of this work? Who knows. But I know that I can’t wait to see how Microsoft responds in this back-and-forth war. “Stay With Office” blimps, perhaps?
I love how people think just because something is “recycled” it’s good for the environment.
Whether it’s recycled or not, it’s still terrible for the environment, and it will still end up in a landfill for thousands of years, spreading toxins into the environment.
Recycling is not green. It’s pollution.
That comment was pollution, who cares.
-1, Greg
MG still cant believe MS and Yahoo reached a deal, pinch pinch. Being hardcore lobbyist himself, he always believed that fellow goog would lobby to see that such thing wont happen.
If ‘Going Google’ is Google’s plan, what about Microsoft? How will Ballmer take this whole thing? I’m curious to know like you MG.
Yeah, I’m shocked. Shocked it didn’t happen sooner. Like most people, I don’t think the MSFT is great for Yahoo, but it seems good for MSFT, and it will be good to have a more legitimate competitor to GOOG.
Its great for Google.
Google is a f_cking bunch of jackasses.
Yes, you heard me right.
Why the hell is Google SMS not fully progammable and free?
Why are there no programmes where you can use Google SMS API to send out 100-120 char Health Checkup Reminders? Medicine reminders? Patient treament schedules?
Why must one sign up for a Google account to do this? This is inhibiting sign-ups for SMS reminder services.
People die because of delays in checkups and get hospitalised because they don’t monitor their blood sugar and blood pressure.
What is the use of the wisdom of Google Thinktank?
What is the use of the hundreds of PhDs that cannot reinvent healthcare in the midst of a the biggest public healthcare debate in the US?
Why does Google think nothing of poor old Barack?
Why is Google acting like a third-world miserly village moneylender-gangster?
I hope I’ve shouted loudly enough for this thing to be taken seriously
No, seriously.
singlepointagenda said…
What is the use of the hundreds of PhDs that cannot reinvent healthcare in the midst of a the biggest public healthcare debate in the US?
That’s the most idiotic comment I’ve ever read. Children know the answer, which is quite obvious. Here is the answer if you don’t know:
First Google is a private company (no taxpayer or government funded) which doesn’t develop all applications necessary to save humanity, simply because their business strategy & budgets won’t allow them. Money doesn’t grow on trees.
Second, what makes you think that Google has an obligation to develop some apps so that people can checkups on their blood-sugar level? If someone or specifically you think that there is a market for it, then welcome to the dynamics of supply & demand in economics. Just go ahead & develop it yourself, because you seem to think that there is a market for it. Spend some millions on it , then take it to the market. I am sure that there will be keen VCs in the Valley who would jump in to join you in the development of your idea.
Funny, that you seem to think that Google should be a Santa Claus company, ie, they should spend billions of dollars developing apps not for making profits but simply to gift them for humanity’s free use? What planet that its citizens & entrepreneurs simply develop everything & anything just for the love of their species without having a clear business objective to do so? I am keen to live in such a Santa Claus planet, where everything is free.
singlepointagenda > Google kills kitten.
Maybe a chalkboard billboard?
Its green (literally)
No waste
Makes sense
what if it rains?
Google will be changing them everyday anyway.
They would get huge buzz doing this.
but that means on a bad day they pay millions of dollars for a blank billboard.
I’m not “going Google” any time soon.
And I’ll never see one of these billboards, because Google thinks targeting California means going after business.
Right. They have no idea what they’re trying to get into, which is why they never will.
They are targeting the areas with the most businesses. Them targeting areas where they may get little response is a TRUE waste of resources.
I think you are also mistaken. Google is well on their way to dominating that market, and soon to start creeping its way into the OS market.
I think you’re a Microsoft fanboy. Either that, or one of those people who absolutely hate the idea of change and innovation.
Google is well on their way to dominating the market? Are you kidding me? That’s about as accurate as saying Matchbox is on its way to dominating the auto market!
Has no one seen the irony of Google going with the most unmeasurable of all advertising channels with billboards?
Their objective is brand advertising, something PPC isn’t amazing at. Then again, their CPC is pretty low on Adwords…
But for building awareness of a brand among the office workers of the world, old media is still king.
Dear Mr. Hart,
Could you be so kind as to provide Stats & Figures backing this up ? Im truly curious for a simple reason – with Office 2010 and competitive pricing MSFT can pretty much guarantee that Office will continue to rule the roost where already in use, however I do feel that with a younger crowd GOOG will score big – the MSFT is ” boring ” factor, if you have Stats, like I said, pls do post.
So $400 a seat for Office is “competitive” to you?
Anyone note that Google Apps are far inferior to MSFT in their capability and features? Google Docs are an absolute joke! The one thing Google had over MSFT was easy web access – but now with MSFT adding cloud apps support, looks like a no-brainer to me – MSFT remains on top.
The MS web apps are crippled (see simultaneous collaboration), because they still want you to buy an expensive license and expensive infrastructure like Server 2008 and Sharepoint.. Google doesn’t have that problem.
most features of MS office don’t have any use for significant percentage of users, saying that the Google docs is more than enough for these people
The holy grail is to create the less garbage as possible, that is, the absolute minimum.
And for a company like Google that has access to every desktop in the world, it is quite odd to advertise with vinyl billboards.
The earth isn’t going anywhere… WE ARE!
-Carlin
Recycling isn’t going to do as much as we would hope or want.
SAVE THOSE SNAILS!
Atleast its going to help someways when compared to other advertisers.
other advertisers don’t change the stuff every single day…
goog uses the billboard as lcd?
Oh, so you’d rather have us produce more and more plastic which will also “still end up in a landfill for thousands of years”. Recycling helps decrease the amount of plastic we need to produce.
Any comment that starts in “Oh, so you’d rather….” should immediately set off the straw-man-argument alarm.
I love how the first poster was able to hijack the whole comments thread to be about something as stupid as 4 billboards of vinyl a day, just because of TC’s comment system buries the second comment below any reply to the first, and everyone wants their comment to be seen.
Anybody else want collapsable comments on TC?
How much money Google pays TechCrunch fanboys! This is becoming stupid! You will soon fall!
Its funny because I see the ad right now on the lower right side of this page.
The thing about Recycling, is to decrease the amount of landfill. Yes it all gonna end up in landfill one day, but if we recycle everything once, that halves the amount of landfill. If we recycle everything twice, it halves it again.
Thus why it is good for the environment…
It’s going to wind up in the landfill eventually, whether you recycle it once or a thousand times – duh, duh, just *duh*. The point is you should never create non-recyclable waste in the first place since it can’t go anywhere without drastic steps like burning it which release so many harmful carcinogens the cure is worse than the illness. Google’s apparently using “new” vinyl that they claim they’ll recycle – so that makes them environmentally conscious, right? Wr-on-g!
You sound like nihilistic to me. What else is environmently friendly when your keyboard need replacement?
you are right theoretically!
but people are interested in seeing where both MS and Google are going. Whats in next episode
It will take them some time to win over big business, but I think they’re already making substantial gains with small business.
Competition is great! I would love to see Google take some Office biz, and see Microsoft take some Search biz.
I would just love to see some standardization in how all of these technologies are handled so we can grasp the freelance developer power for making new and interesting things across the web.
Pick a standard, make it open ~ continue innovation.
Standardization? Uh, it’s called “ODF” (at least for standalone docs), and it’s already been around for a couple of years.
(I haven’t looked at Google Docs in a while, so I don’t remember if they support ODF, or if they are still stuck on DOC format for exported or imported documents.)
Not sure what you mean by, “how all of these technologies are handled,” so I don’t know if that answered your question/gripe.
Google, first thanks for moving me off the waiting list and onto the go list for the Google camp out this weekend.
Next, I work for a large company that can’t move to Google apps for the simple reason that we need absolute security over our network.
I realize that https is pretty secure, but we don’t know what kind of auditing is done on the Google side. Why couldn’t an employee just take some vital information about a fortune 500 company and sell it on the black market or use it for insider trading???
The server side technology obviously is not a black box to Google, but it is a black box to consumers.
If Google could release an open source suite that would let us conserve data on our hard drives and only use methods on the Google servers, it would facilitate overcoming this obstacle.
Otherwise having 3rd parties conserve data critical to a big company with lots of seats could require some additional understanding.
I hope you understand why this is.
BTW, I am very familiar with various Google APIs, namely finance. I use GData with Zend Framework.
If we could get some type of ZF API that would let us use Google but keep the data away from Google and to ourselves, it would give us some latitude for presenting it as a secure enterprise solution.
You might want to take a look at Secure Data Connector:
http://code.goo...edataconnector/
-A
I wish we could “like” your comment just like we have in Facebook.
I work in an industry where security is mandated by law.
I love using Google’s stuff … for my personal/rental business.
But until I have control over my own data, Google is a non-starter. If they would sell be a server with their software (that doesn’t phone home, of course), I would buy into that. But unless I want to be sued for millions of dollars, I need my email etc. on my local hard drive (backups, etc.).
I fail to see why Google never addresses this concern. I CAN NOT move things to “the could”. Not “will not”, “can not”.
Exactly.
We saw what can happen with the Twitter Confidential Docs Hack…which originated with the targeting of Twitter employee’s Google Apps accounts and the ultimate leak of confidential data.
Not good.
A large business’s requirement for absolute control of networks and data is justified on those grounds.
Would really like to see Host-Proof Hosting implemented in Google Apps based on the confidential nature of the data that companies need to store in their systems.
http://en.wikip...t-proof_hosting
Users would then provide a key each and every time they login. Maybe I could switch it on and off in Google Apps.
That would then mean that if my account was hacked the data stored is in encrypted format. Complete garbage without the key.
The obvious additional bonus is that the data is encrypted twice over the data channel also.
Wonder whether Google have looked in to it for Apps…
Google could solve all of this with a ‘hosted’ version like they are doing with Google Wave. Maybe that’s part of the masterplan.
Microsoft’s Azure offering was designed for exactly these concerns – it offers a public (hosted) cloud, a private cloud (you have the info on your infrastructure) and a hybrid model where your private internal systems talk to the public cloud via secure mechanisms.
This is ultimatly the undoing of their business model – security and more importantly – privacy. 85% of all security violations are from internal sources and on top of this they proactily search and filter all your content and map it to an id. What people simply do not realize is that Google and MSFT and all these companies need to ultimatly move to a paid model because the ad model is fundamentally flawed due to technology, inefficiency, security, and privacy issues.
Well said, sir. The cloud is great for personal data (if you’re willing to accept the risk someone could very easily steal it), but it will never work for most businesses, especially not Fortune 500 companies as their data has to be secure. And the only way to guarantee that your data is secure, is to own/manage your entire infrastructure.
I work for a six year old company now, but before working here I worked at a Fortune 500 company. I can assure you that as awesome as “the cloud” can be, it will never be adopted by any legitimate business as data on someone else’s servers can never be considered truly secure.
Agreed! However, I don’t think Google is too concerned about the Enterprise market. Google has always made incredible products – but products that are aimed at low level consumers to medium sized businesses. On that note, I think Microsoft’s (finally) acquisition of Yahoo! demonstrates that Microsoft is ready to target small businesses and home based businesses in earnest – an area where they have thus far failed miserably in almost every regard from an internet perspective (they’ve cleaned up the desktop market).
There are a lot of users up for grabs as we foray further into the age of home-based companies and doing business from your iPhone. Especially for small but nimble companies who operate remotely, cloud hosted services are invaluable.
I agree with earlier comments that Google won’t see adoption from enterprise markets and even older users who are used to Microsoft products – but the advantages of being able to check mail, read and share documents, etc. from any location, using a well-funded, secure interface, will certainly continue to gain traction with younger generations.
Where’s your leach?
wink wink* focus on the fight, not environment! That’s what all this is about…:)
Marvin
Google struck a deal with my school switching our email accounts to gmail and promoting google docs, its sweet we got free mousepads and posters.
what. no candy?
now their bots read all your email and track your network activity as well as keywords and they now send ads to all your students – you just gave up over $150/student in advertising opportunity costs thinking you were getting a free deal. In reality your paying google $150/student and giving up all their privacy for a second rate email program.
wake up – there is no free lunch
Google is trying to fight a battle that they will not win. If their target is truly Office, they better save their money. There are so many features missing from their offerings that will take years and years to develop that the majority of businesses will not switch.
On the Office side, to put it simply, Office 2000 (9 year old version) is 1000 times better than Google Docs and Sheets in terms of features and usability. Add to that the fact that many business have standardized on using Excel Macros, Access databases with code in them, and Word mailing lists and mail merge, none of those businesses are going to switch any time soon.
On the messaging side, good luck replacing Exchange as the de-facto messaging server. Google Apps might work well for smaller businesses, but larger businesses (the majority of business who actually pay for their licenses) the lack of manageability, central administration, and a business caliber client will mean that they will never switch.
The other aspect to consider is the amount of money and resources that have already been invested in existing installations and licenses. Why would someone switch out of a working Exchange environment and move to Google Apps if everything is working fine? Why would a business switch their office applications when they already have licenses for Office? Why redevelop all the macros, spreadsheets, pivot tables, and access databases when things are working?
Google Apps might be good solutions but their features are still very lacking for the average business user.
Good points. It is often said that the average user uses less than 10% of Office’s features, but those features vary by user. And while for individual users you might find a few (or 1.7 million) that actually don’t need more than a certain common basic set of features, it is unlikely that you will find many companies where all (or even most) of their users will find into that category. And it is quite likely that the majority of those users that are using Google’s apps are not doing so exclusively, and use Office (or something else) for their complex tasks. In that view, Google apps are a great complement to Office, but not a replacement.
Your bloat is my bread and butter.
That anecdote actually isn’t true. Check out Jensen Harris’ talk on the design of Office 2007 – http://videos.v....com/MIX08/UX09
I worked for a government agency that decided (via consultants) that they could save $7 million dollars over the next 10 years if we switched to Oracle business suite instead of Exchange. Well into the effort they realized it would cost $20 million to rework the automation they’d built into using MS. (they went back to Exchange).
That said, for workplaces with a limited number of employees or without the need for the advanced features – google apps is pretty nice for something that you don’t have to administer or install. I’m using it more and more personally.
So how is MS combating these exact same issues when they move to cloud computing with their own beloved Office product? If there’s solutions that will help migrate massive numbers of business accounts, they will be found and implemented – Google is not stupid.
Personally, I just love all the “google stuff sucks” comments… Completely ignoring the fact that, if it sucks so bad, why is MS scrambling to catch up and compete on their playing field???
These people usually don’t understand the concept of change and the fact that a new model brings new features, not just duplication of the old model.
So here’s a common scenario for me at work: I want to share a document or spreadsheet with someone else, and both work on it simultaneously, since neither of us is going to site and do nothing until the other person is done saving the file.
Google Apps lets me get this up and going in under a minute. How can I do this with Office 2007 in under a minute (or at all)?
LOVE Google Apps. Been using them for a couple of years. They just keep getting better and better.
Still can’t understand why any company or organization (especially small organizations and non-profits) would EVER use MS Exchange, etc.
Your domain + Google Apps + Postini + all set to go.
KAP
You don’t much prefer using Excel to Spreadsheet or Word to Document?
For me the Google doc experience, with those two in particular, suck except for the convenience of the cloud.
a) because they need one of the thousand features that Google apps miss. I am one of those users. I can use Apps for maybe five minutes before missing some important feature. And yes, they will get more complete with time, and also slower, more complex and “bloated” in the view of some.
b) because they can’t trust their documents to a third party. Most companies cannot risk that.
c) because they need to be able to work offline. Ever tried to use Google apps from a plane? There are thousands of such situations employees find themselves into, and an exclusively online platform doesn’t work.
d) because they cannot risk the privacy implications of a cloud based service.
e) because they are global and cannot work with apps that suck on liks that have over 500ms in latency (like those in over half of the planet).
f) because they cannot afford to have their whole companies down when there’s an outage at Google.
And I could go on.
Yes, Google docs are great for some stuff. But if you can’t imagine scenarios where they don’t work, you just need to get out of your bubble and see the real world.
+10000 Absolutely spot on.
Google Docs work offline and have no latency using Google Gears. Hosting your docs on Windows is more dangerous than on Google, because of viruses, spyware, and the general danger of using Windows.
Keep dreaming buddy.
None of those Windows problems go away because you store your data in “the cloud”
Security/Confidentiality laws mandate that I have my stuff on my machine.
Security/Confidentiality lawsn – which ones ?please be specific – thx
@Charbax .. you are funny
and ignorant.
“b) because they can’t trust their documents to a third party. Most companies cannot risk that.”
Google Apps’ strategy for large businesses is to have local servers host the docs. For small, it is much safer to trust a third party with truly secure, redundant storage than their own servers or desktop hard drives.
“c) because they need to be able to work offline. Ever tried to use Google apps from a plane? There are thousands of such situations employees find themselves into, and an exclusively online platform doesn’t work.”
It’s called Google Gears. It allows me to use all google apps and Gmail while offline, anywhere. You might want to research a topic next time you decide to bloviate. The whole google strategy hinges on apps that use the browser as an interface, but where the files are stored either locally or on the web.
“d) because they cannot risk the privacy implications of a cloud based service.”
Local servers, local files, I think I already went over this. The long term strategy of Google Apps being hosted on local company servers pretty much kills the rest of your arguments. Office is extremely useful, and I have no problems with its general functionality. However, dealing with a large enterprise where everyone stores stuff locally is a headache. MS’s answer has been Sharepoint, which is slow, bloated, and just plain awful compared. I use web base MS Exchange. Again, slow, bloated, and compared to Gmail, awful! MS is going to try to take Office into the browser world, and they are going to get spanked.
And when you factor in the cost of leasing Google servers to provide their Google Apps/Gears/Gmail functionality, plus someone to administer them, you might as well have purchased your own. Trust me, Google appliances are not cheap to lease. And then you still have to provide power, cooling, floor space, etc. At that point, it’s asinine to pay Google to lease servers for their cloud based apps.
You must be on SharePoint 2k3, because 2k7 is incredible. Admittedly 2k3 was a mess, but 2k7 is phenomenal. And if it’s a slow as you claim it to be, sounds like your company needs to upgrade their infrastructure.
And you must still be using Exchange 2k3 webmail. 2k7 runs smooth as can be. Again, if you’re experiencing major lag, it’s either your system, your connection or your company’s servers.
I love Google and everything they do, but being an Enterprise Administrator, I can assure you that your points would fall off a steep cliff when it comes down to dollars and cents.
Small organizations, sure.
Big organizations — the ones that pay all those MS Office fees — they have an issue with their files stored on servers they don’t control.
If Google’s strategy is to suck the life out of MS Office through small organizations, they are taking a seriously slow road.
Large corporations can save millions switching to Google Apps, and it’s safer to use Google than to have to hire your own security people to setup secure networks for Windows computers. Hacking of networks for Windows computers happens everyday.
and what if Google messes with my company’s data, what liability google has? … none!
Read the “Limitation of liabilty” clause
http://www.goog...mier_terms.html
Save millions? Seriously? You’ve obviously never worked for IT in a large corporation. There is huge downward budget pressure on IT departments to cut costs. You really think if a corporate CIO could save *millions* on a piece of their budget, they wouldn’t move on it today?
This. Well said, sir.
This is such a “small beans” mentality – the cost of having MS Office / Exchange / SharePoint in a decent sized organization is trivial compared to the value that those services provide. If there’s one place to cut costs in IT, that’s not it.
google apps do not come close to the rich and mature environment of office – and frankly my attention time, behavior and privacy is not so cheap that I am willing to give it away for googles mediocre apps
gotta love the feisty-ness. but they could’ve used a better font than a geeky-nerdy courier to appeal to the water-cooler crowd.
plus unless an offline client comes, they have no freaking chance.
Yeah, but the courier font relates old school office correspondence perfectly, which is the idea, I think – making sure it targets the office worker.
Google Apps work offline, just install Google Gears.
Really, just Fine…. I guess as long as you don’t need to:
- Create or edit a calendar entry offline
- create, view or edit a contact
- create a task, document, spreadsheet or presentation….
- edit a spreadsheet or presentation
(this is a short list of things not working offline with Gears)
Read Google’s own support note. Their suggestion is to create a bunch of blank documents while online, then you’ll have them later if you want to create one on an airplane.
Really folks – Gears is not a panacea. (Nor is their Outlook support, but that’s another issue).
Just because they have “checked the box” for offline – you need to look at what it really does.
what’s offline with no sync? the user expectation is that offline has MORE features than the online version, not less!
once you solve it, what you have on your hands, is nothing but what microsoft has NOW.
so they can go ahead and scrape the bottom 20% of the market with this product. ballmer would be glad, while he spends $2.5B on search while google is busy doing this.
game on.
Problem with Google Apps is online safety, integration with legit Microsoft office formats: xls, doc, ppt, size of the documents: google spreadsheet has limited max rows. Google Apps is vague. I don’t know what is google apps anyway. they need to advertise more specifically and what is included.
Google is winning alot of the techies, but the majority of businesses are brick and mortar with no technical owners. Microsoft has a monopoly on those people.
James F.
Owner, TwitterBackground.com”> – Free Twitter backgrounds
Microsoft has monopoly on morons.
Well, a lot of big companys using MS suff. They’re morons. And they make/has more money than the remaining, who’s wise like you guys.
+100
That’s the world for you.
Disagree completely. I am a techie, I work for a mid-size company, and my company is full of EEs, MEs, CS, CEs, etc.
I am an Enterprise Admin and I would never recommend giving up our MS/Linux/Unix infrastructure for Google’s cloud apps.
One word — SECURITY.
I love all Google apps except the ones MS does so well – word, excel, etc.
And even though I’m a Google fan, if Microsoft can seamlessly migrate MS office online I would definitely go with them, but continue to use all the superior Google apps – gmail, gtalk, video, etc.
The offensive by Google is justified. Microsoft people always tries to rule with stick in there hands. I have been using Google apps for quite some time and never had any problems with it. The new of Google OS is fantastic looking forward for more feature updates from Google.
Feeling lucky? “…Google does not offer live customer support…” Hear the recorded message with the phone call I made just this morning to the google offices looking for a human to talk with. http://ff.im/63Rm7 <= audio recorded message
As opposed to “enter your credit card and we may talk you through THIS issue, and only THIS issue… further issues require another deposit”
And of course, you’ll be lucky if you can understand the outsourced person on the other end, reading line by line from an action tree, unable to think for themselves or even understand what the exact problem is if you can’t put it in the simplest terms that happen to be action items on the troubleshooting flowchart.
Comparing no support to crap support, it’s pretty much a wash and a waste of a post.
Regardless of who wins, going Google is the way to go and if you aren’t using Google Apps in one form or another, you should be. Even if you end up using the MS office suite at times for certain docs, having Gmail style corporate email with calendar and docs included is a no brainer for almost any small to medium sized organization.
I can choose Outlook over Gmail anytime of the day, it is a no brainer too.
You do realize you just compared a computer program to a mail service, don’t you? Apples and oranges there, man.
Nothing stopping you from using Outlook to send/receive your gmail, by the way… Just FYI
I think the largest salvo is yet to come. There is already a reseller program being actively developed for all things under the Google Apps umbrella of services.
The critical part of this is not a direct market approach — so I am pretty sure the funnel is being used to create what Microsoft already has built over many years — a channel. Once the collection of mid-market VARs that operate exclusive to the SMB/SME community begins to appreciate the recurring revenue stream as a known path to offset loss of ever decreasing margins on unit sales of software, hardware, and support contracts, there will be a slice of revenue that promotes sustainable growth.
This is a race to see if Google Apps Reseller Program can be catalyzed further by direct marketing messages in an ovevert campaign.
The game will be between Microsoft and Google for creation of a channel vs. trying to cut out the middle man with self service applications. The VAR and integrator has to be getting appreciable margins or look to recurring revenues with the option to sell deeper into their customer. As the “box movers” struggle to find margins the survivors will be those that look to services.
Great stuff, as usual, Jay.
Thanks. I’ll be keeping an eye on this over the fiscal year.
Jay — recurring revenues are not much use if they are miniscule. Google Apps’ reseller program has failed badly so far because:
1) the revenue potential is tiny, and
2) Google is not a trusted ‘channel-friendly’ company like Microsoft is.
Google is very conflicted when it comes to VARs: they say that they love the channel and want VARs to sell Google; yet on the other, their instinct is to sell direct, with transparent pricing (VARs don’t like that) and 99% of sales direct from their Web site — with Google owning the customer relationship.
Selling to the channel is largely a state of mind — and Google does not have it. It wants to be both single and married simultaneously — and each one does bring benefits — but you can’t get both at once. (You can’t be ‘half-married’.)
Microsoft does have this mindset, although it has had some issues with its Microsoft Online channel program. (It is a bit of a mess, but they will probably work it out).
If Google wants to get serious about the channel, it needs to do several things:
- stop selling direct, and refer sales prospects to partners instead
- offer Google Apps code to partners so they can host it themselves
- relinquish some control over how the final product is deployed (with APIs and configuration)
Of course, this will not happen (Google is currently ’single’ and the steps above would constitute marriage.)
I don’t entirely disagree with any specific point you’ve made. Again, I view this as a growth model over years vs. some instant *boom* and markets shift.
The channel “respect” you outline is something earned of course. I don’t think anyone would dispute that. Acquisition costs for a VAR vs. ISV Partnerships are something both behemoths are aware of presently and won’t just disappear overnight.
Another concern I’ve heard is the notion of “running it in house”. I think that is slightly myopic and assumes private clouds are already here and fully baked. Perhaps some niche examples and proof of concepts — sure. That said, I think you’ll see much more vibrant use of Google SDC for data tapping that SME (SMB maybe not) does not want in a cloud in the coming year. Google SDC is happening today and is very much the wedge technology solution to upselling firewall licenses for VPN. It’s an interesting time for those saddled with legacy applications.
I know many VARs that are only on the fence until final margin calculations are done — then it’s goodbye Microsoft for a fixed percentage of their business in favor of Google Apps for their distributed clients.
Jay++
So is anyone going to actually acknowledge that despite all of the hype and cheerleading from the blogosphere, the impact of Google Apps on Microsoft’s market share could easily be discounted as a rounding error? Or should I just shut up and drink my Kool-Aid?
I see what you did here.
Logical fallacy much?
Moving your documents to the cloud means that you are giving up your freedom to access your documents anytime anywhere.
Internet goes down, Google has a glitch, They change policies and you cannot access your docs anymore unless you open your wallet. You name it.
On your PC, your documents are available 24/7, always free and you can take them with you with a simple USB key or a Netbook.
The cloud is just to play, and to upload documents that you don’t care if they get stolen.
The Cloud acts as a complement to local storage. Making accessing, sharing, and collaborating data simple and easy. The problem with Google’s approach is that everything is on the Cloud. While this isn’t a problem for the common individual, when you start getting into business level stuff, you need to be able to manage the Cloud you use. MSFT shines in this area where as Google fails as it does not offer a method for such organizations to manage and create their own Cloud service.
The way I see it, Google will fail in this battle because MSFT is tailoring for the needs and capabilities for both the individual and for larger businesses, seeing has they are offering Office online for free via WIndows Live and selling Sharepoint to businesses.
what happened to Eric Schmidt’s remark that a company like Google doesn’t need to advertise (i.e. spend money on advertising) when it’s the subject of conversation at every cocktail party in town. Guess things have changed, eh Eric?
Indeed. There has been some Chrome advertising, and a few other things here and there, but this is the first major enterprise push, we’re told.
I tried using Google Excel ‘replacement’. The web based version is crap. I assume their OS version will be better. However, what people fail to realize is that if Google ever gains a true foothold in the app space they will be just as monopolistic and greedy as Microsoft.
Excel is WAY faster to work in than Google Spreadsheets.
WAY FASTER.
between google apps and evernote, i have become a completely different person at work. I actually “remember” things, i schedule properly, i collaborate with co-workers and i am always reachable through gmail or gvoice. i honestly cant even remember life without it.
Finally starting to convince the majority of employees at my company to switch to gmail because our outlook server and exchange options seem like 1999 AOL compared to the just ridiculously vast features google offers.
I am still a huge fan of Open Office
Seconded there… Free, fast, free, multi-platform, free, full-featured… and did I mention free???
“The 101?” “THE 101?” Jesus. Maybe in L.A., but no one I know in Silicon Valley calls it “THE 101″. It’s just “101″ for God’s sake. Or “The Highway to Hell” or “the parking lot past the airport.” And btw, it’s also just “85″ and “17″ and “280″. That “the” really bugs me. Oh. And don’t call it “Frisco” either. Harrumph.
I live here, and I’m calling it the 101. Okay, to be fair, I used to live in LA.
Don’t worry, MG. I have no idea what doug’s talking about. I’ve lived here since ‘92 and have never lived in LA. It’s The 101, unless North or South is appended.
I used to live in LA, moved to the Bay Area when I was really young, and now I go to UCLA. There is definitely a difference in usage. In the Bay Area, with some exceptions, people generally don’t use the “the” and find it awkward. But in LA, a freeway just isn’t a freeway if there isn’t a “the” before. As a result, I’ve heard “the 405″, “the 101″, and “101″, but very rarely “the 85.”
Over here on the other side of the world in Philadelphia, we never call our highways by numbers. If you come here and listen to radio or TV traffic reports, you’ll be totally confused since they’ll all use names (that aren’t posted on the road signs) rather than highway numbers.
The Schulkyll Expressway (76), The Roosevelt Boulevard (1), The Blue Route (476), etc.
I’m a longtime user of Microsoft Office, even before I used it at work. Tried the Google Docs suite (part of Google Apps) and was not impressed. If there’s any threat to Microsoft (Windows + Office + Exchange), it’s probably not Google. I’d say it’s more likely to be Ubuntu Linux with OpenOffice.org.
Well I think competition is good for performing better It always helps you to improve your work.Microsoft is cool and google is great search engine but this new news about google is also rocking.
Yes! Even Google has to advertise their products. Got that, Silicon Valley entrepreneurs? SEO and SEM are not enough! And definitely not just “word of mouth”!
Google Apps for corporates is just a joke, be my guest trying to connect SQL Server (or whatever data source you like) to Google Spreadsheet, or you also expect to move corporate data from the local servers up to the Google Cloud ??
Excel & Access forms are not only programs they also a UI for many other third party applications, and also people can intergate their features inside their own applications, or write plugins and macros, it a whole ecosystem
Google should activate ads-free Google Apps for all users, I want to pay $5 per year for having Gmail and all other Google Apps without ads.
Google Wave will change the dynamics of all businesses.
25 GB inbox, why? 25GB is a lot of liability, retention policies exist for reasons other than storage limits.
IM, voice & video? Communicator does that, and integrates with PBX & Exchange
Web-based docs? Sharepoint, on my servers, where I can control security.
Web based calendar? Exchange
Mobile email? Exchange
Internal Websites? Sharepoint?
I love google apps, they are great for consumers and small businesses, but the big fish can’t make a defensible argument for switching. Vendors, legacy apps, security, features; the list goes on.
I agree, gmail is good for small business, but it won’t work out on a corporate scale. There are just too much security flaws.
For instances, on Google website, you cant restrict access to users, and you can’t set user privileges. I also dont like how gmail has ads in them.
needless to say, did anyone forget how twitter was hacked just recently, leaking all their internal documents. and needless to say, they were using google services
how about getting affiliates to promote their products? they did that with firefox for a bit (using their toolbar) and that got downloads going…perhaps a commision on per sign up? or per download of chrome…etc etc
I think Google can do with whatever they can to promote their product, but it will still take much time for users to move on from MS and open office. It is exactly similar to the case of the search engines. I feel it will take as much time or probably even a bit longer, as Bing will take to successfully compete with Google search engine.
I think it will be good to see as both sides would empower themselves to hold front on both the ends. But then holding on to both the ends is not easy.
Sonal Maheshwari
USourceIT: Your single source for all IT needs
I like google fine… I am not a MS lover neither…
But please let’s be realistic for a moment, google docs is lite-office. There is a reality called excel which is an amaizing app and none of online MS-Office clones including google docs are getting close to its functionality.
Going google at work? Well it definetly would cause me much harder work…
I’ve been using Google Apps for our primary business for over a year. Very happy “customer” here though the only aspect we pay for is the email.
I feel like more businesses are going to trust the more traditional Microsoft Office suite over Google Apps.
Google Apps were all based on the features that MO came up with in the first place. MO was the original and the most feature-ful suite of office tools out there.
That’s not to say that Mo is better than GA. Just saying that people might not want to risk the change to apps just yet.
How many of the *millions* of businesses actually use Google apps?.
It s a free email service. I use exchange but also have apps as a backup for when my server fails. Every now and then there is a power outage in my office and my emails go to Google. Does that really make Apps a serious Exchange/Sharepoint/Office Competitor?
I constantly register Google Apps accounts for friends and clients and all they use it for is to forward to their existing email addresses.
If GooG wants us to use Apps they should try to get the already registered users to actually *use* Apps instead of spending millions to get new customers that will do the same things as the old ones (only use Google as a backup or relay server)
+1
I bet less than 25% actually use something other than the email/calendar functionality.
When I’m absolutely certain I need an unsupported, un-secured (*cough* twittergate *cough*) application in the cloud to mind (and mine) my business documents, I will be sure to switch to Google Apps… which should be about the time hell freezes over
Yes indeed. Google should spend $ fixing these issues before they advertise…
Well said.
I don’t think it is aimed at MSFT, it is aimed at assuring customers after the twitter fiasco.
Sooner or later, you’ll be using google apps even if you didn’t attend to.
I think google is being underestimated, but they will dominate the web!
“the company’s first operating system”
I think you might find its their second OS.
I am a longtime google apps user but I don’t trust the docs and sheets for mission critical info because they regularly fail. And who can you call to complain? No one. It’s a non-starter for valuable docs. Nice for sone things though like notes and light calcing.
I Just love competition between businesses!
<3 openoffice
I still think that Google OS will end up by killing Google. Not only Google will need to deal with its biggest rival but also, will need to deal with a product that, compared to its rival, will probably be worst. This means: Google will show its weakness to its customers –and thus, they will be more inclined to switch for (paid&close) Microsoft..
Day #2: Ah. “Going Google” is the new Brazilian..
I run my entire company on Google Apps.
Reason? I don’t need to bother with Windows at all. No licensing, no installation, no crap overhead debugging viruses or whatever.
Then, I don’t need to spend money and human capital on the expensive Office suite. No apps, no training, no debugging.
Google is simple and my staff use any OS we have. Windows, Mac, Linux, and they are interchangeable.
No training needed for Gmail.
I’m already profitable without having done anything!!! Try that with Office and Exchange!!!
So true. I have added several small businesses to Apps for the same reasons – ease, value.
Although, I still think larger companies might appreciate hosting their entire Apps service on their own secured servers rather than leaving their data in Google’s farm.
You obviously have no need for security, data retention, meeting SOX compliance, etc.
Google apps are great
waiting for chrome os
Lets face it though Google apps are still quite far off the office product. Think about all the enterprise level macros that are hardcoded into documents and speadsheets. I cant see all of that been recoded for the google apps platform.
Honestly speaking, I doubt.
So what does TechCrunch use? Are they an outlook office or a GDocs office?
Wow, a “news” story about ads, from a site that makes its living off selling those ads (yeah yeah, disclosure given).
Thanks for emphasizing TC is a blog, not a news ste.
+1