Google Apps Team Edition aims to move companies to the cloud
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Google launches Apps Team Edition that lets anyone collaborate on Google Apps with anyone else in their e-mail domain, solving some of the security concerns corporations have with hosted apps and broadening the reach Google's cloud computing can have.
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Online search engine leader Google Inc. (GOOG) is setting its sights on the computer desktop with a new software program that promises to scour through the clutter of documents, e-mails, instant messages and other files stored on hard drives.
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Product Manager Rajen Sheth tells how Google Apps will lure enterprise tech managers to Google services.
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(InfoWorld) - Microsoft and IBM executives Wednesday admitted feeling heat from Google now that the Web search giant is trying to make inroads into the enterprise market with its hosted suite of communication and collaboration tools. Google Apps, a hosted service, is gaining traction primarily in universities but is a welcome addition to enterprise software because of its simplicity and ease of use, said Rob Curry, director of Microsoft's Office business platform group, during a panel discussion today at the Enterprise 2.0 conference in Boston. "We actually see [Google] as a great competitor in this space," Curry said. "And they bring a good spirit in terms of simplicity, ease of use and things we're trying to leverage as we go forward in our development cycle." Google Apps was described as a "direct shot at Microsoft Office" by Forrester Analyst Erica Driver when Google released an enterprise version of the tool in February. For US$50 per user per year, customers get e-mail, instant messaging, a calendar tool, a Web page creator, support for e-mail on BlackBerry mobile devices and integration with Google Docs & Spreadsheets. Analysts say Google Apps offers less functionality than Office but is less expensive. IBM, which offers the Lotus Notes set of e-mail, calendaring and collaborative applications, and Lotus Sametime, an IM and Web conferencing tool, has partnered with Google but still sees the company as a potential competitor. Lotus Sametime allows IM customers to communicate with users of Google Talk. "We're a key partner of Google's," said Ken Bisconti, vice president of messaging and collaboration software for IBM, during the panel discussion. "We partner with them, and continue to partner with them, hopefully for the good of our customers. I also fully expect them to become a competitor to us in the business space." Google executives are busy trying to understand the requirements of enterprises, a learning process that will be crucial if the search company hopes to gain market traction for Google Apps outside of academia, Bisconti said. "Most of our customers tell us they're talking to the Google enterprise team," he said. "Google is doing a good job of collecting information to understand enterprise requirements. ... I don't see them as a near-term competitor but as a long-term potential substitution." No Google officials participated in the panel. The session, titled "Vendor Spotlight: Assessing IBM & Microsoft Platforms for Collaboration & Unified Communications," also gave the vendors a chance to discuss the broad trend in which employees expect the types of instant communication available to them in their personal lives. This is placing increased important on IM, Web conferencing, video and audio conferencing, and mobile communications. "The role of instant messaging has completely transformed and it has become a business expectation," said Akiba Saeedi, IBM's program director for unified communications and collaboration products. Years ago, people questioned whether e-mail would become a necessary business function. No one would question e-mail's importance today, and IM seems to be heading in a similar direction, Saeedi said. Bisconti cautioned against getting caught up in industry buzzwords such asÂ "enterprise 2.0," but said the desire for collaborative technology in general is real and has created a huge business opportunity for software vendors. "I have never seen so much senior-level interest in companies in improving the way they communicate, collaborate and improve the speed and agility of their business," he said.
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The company hopes to lure software partners by promising to save them from infrastructure headaches.
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Google is introducing an online business software package designed to make it easier for people in the same organization to share documents and information.
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Companies like Microsoft and Google have committed to improving the power efficiency of equipment they make and use.
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(InfoWorld) - CapgeminiÂ , a major global services provider, has just partnered with Google to enable large-scale adoption of the enterprise version of Google Apps. Capgemini will provide training, support, integration, and other services to large organizations that implement Google Apps Premier. Itâs a small but momentous event, signaling increasing enterprise interest in free Web-based apps that look and feel like Word, Excel, and other Microsoft Office software. Google Apps was added to the portfolio of products Capgemini supports because the company believes demand for SaaS (software-a-service) productivity suites will grow strongly in coming years. Steve JonesÂ , a CTO at Capgemini, is quick to note that Google Apps will not displace Office, but will fill two niches: enhancing the ability of knowledge workers to create documents collaboratively and bringing Office-like capabilities to workers who would not otherwise have them. Nonetheless, adoption is bound to increase. "I'd expect more and more IT services companies will offer that kind of help desk and support around the Google Apps Premier environment," says Rebecca WettemannÂ , an analyst with Nucleus ResearchÂ . "Now is the time to definitely have advanced technology folks and strategy people, the ones who look a year or two ahead, to look at this stuff and stay abreast of it, even if the time isn't yet right to purchase," says Burton Group analyst Guy CreeseÂ . "A huge mistake would be to look at the offerings today, say they're immature, and then not pay any attention." At this point, with viral adoption of Google Apps happening under ITâs radar, attention is already being paid by rank in file employees. And Google is far from the only provider. Several smaller vendors with strong offerings, including ZohoÂ  and ZimbraÂ , compete directly with Google Apps. Cisco Systems now offers its WebEx WebOffice Â platform for collaboration, while a number of applications in Salesforce.comâs AppExchange venture into desktop productivity territory Waiting for Redmondâs shoe to drop Conspicuous by its absence is Microsoft, which has been unable or unwilling to come out with a hosted suite comparable to Google Apps. Many wonder if Microsoft is having a hard time figuring out how to develop a hosted version of Office without cannibalizing its offline business. "A challenge for Microsoft is to figure out how to get people to buy the next version of Office if there is also an on-demand version," says Wettemann. Yet few doubt that Microsoft will eventually respond with a direct competitor to Google Apps and other similar suites. When it does, the effect on the market will likely be significant. "I think Microsoft needs to worry about it now because it takes a while to get right," Creese says. "In hosted office suites, it's going to take a while for companies to figure out how they want the thing to work." In defense of the current strategy, Microsoft officials have said that Office has steadily gained hosted service components for years, and that combining local PC software with services in the cloud is the right approach. Steve Ballmer elaborated on this point last May at the Software 2007 conference. Last week, Microsoft released a unified installer to help users download updates for its family of Windows Live hosted services. Yet those who have been waiting for Microsoft to make a power move found the announcement underwhelming and dismissed it as cosmetic. Not a desktop substitute While many organizations ponder SaaS productivity suites, thousands of others have already implemented them. Web-based suites save on hardware and on time and effort for software installation and maintenance. They also make it easy for employees to share and collaborate on documents for a fraction of the cost it would take to implement an in-house messaging and collaboration system such as Microsoft SharePoint or IBM's Lotus Domino/Notes. Disadvantages include security concerns over hosting sensitive data with a third-party outside the corporate firewall, as well as downtime incidents that leave the organization without access. Upon close inspection, exiting SaaS suites reveal themselves as strong in certain areas and weak in others. In a recently published and widely discussed 55-page report, Creese took a microscope to Google Apps Premier, dissecting its pros and cons in detail. For example, Creese found the suite lacking in archiving features, such as records management and electronic discovery, as well as in analytics capabilities, such as analysis of content creation patterns. Google responded with a statement saying that the suite gives organizations "a new set of choices, many of which will complement and extend the power of the desktop, enhance group productivity and improve collaboration." Indeed, after weighing the pros and cons of SaaS suites, most analysts, users and vendors generally agree that these will not eliminate the need for packaged software suites. Because each model has its advantages, they work best in tandem, complementing each other. "We'll see more and more organizations that look to a tiered strategy for the way they deliver desktop applications. So rather than have a standard desktop, I may give Office to the folks in finance who really need Excel, while the folks in marketing may be fine within the Google environment," Wettemann says. The network effect At Adison & PartnersÂ , an executive recruitment consultancy, adopting Cisco's WebOffice has had a major positive effect, says Managing Partner Jim DiPietropoloÂ . The 8-person company has been office-less for the past several months, awaiting the completion of its new digs, which got delayed. With people working from home, having documents and calendars stored centrally in WebOffice servers has prevented the workflow from getting disjointed. "It ties everyone together," he says. Beyond helping with this temporary issue, WebOffice lets DiPietropolo and his employees be nimble in responding to client queries and requests while out of the office, by tapping remotely into databases and getting information on the fly. "From a business development standpoint, this has been a differentiator for us," he says. "This ability to instantaneously respond [to queries] really impresses clients." The significance of the Capgemini announcement, however, is that desktop SaaS solutions are moving upscale, from small businesses like Adison & Partners to global corporations â where dispersed knowledge workers are warming to the idea of collaborating on the same document in real time. âHaving a single version of the truth changes the business process,â says Capgeminiâs Jones, who notes that the e-mail round-robin that occurs in conventional document collaborations is eliminated. âReally, what weâre talking about is bringing software-as-a-service innovation to the desktop,â says Jones. âThe main way that people interact with a corporation is through the desktop. We are delivering software-as-a-service solutions into that market.â
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InfoWorld - With the launch of the Google Apps suite last year, Google became a provider of hosted collaboration and communication software for small and medium-size organizations, and it made clear its aspirations to lure large-company IT managers and CIOs with the suite&#39;s&#160;Premier Edition, introduced in February.
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Company looks to juice its application server business with a version tuned for smaller organizations.
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Hyperion Solutions has announced support for the Google OneBox for Enterprise, which allows Hyperion users to access BI-related dashboards, reports, metrics and other unstructured corporate content and financial applications.
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InfoWorld - Google has formed a partnership with Capgemini, which will provide IT services to large businesses that adopt the Google Apps Premier Edition hosted suite of collaboration and communication software.
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Updated OS includes software applications designed for business users.
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TechWeb - Most of its work within the group will focus on making its middleware more compatible with Microsoft's.
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Company debuts new products that let businesspeople shuttle data from databases to mobile gadgets.
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Google Inc. on Wednesday introduced a way to move its online software applications off the Internet, hoping the flexibility will encourage more people to use the free services and extend the company's clout beyond its ubiquitous search engine.
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IBM said the strategy is to enable companies to centrally manage business applications and tools across employee devices. That should help companies cut IT support costs as well as build work