Learn about Google Apps

The search giant said that their Google Apps is an addition, not a replacement for Microsoft Office and is intended to help users increase online collaboration. What remains is seen as Google's efforts to increase the security of Google Apps on the web to create confidence for IT organizations.

When Google launched its web mail (Gmail) service on April 1, 2004, many people thought it was an April Fool's Day joke. That same day, the company also launched plans to study on the moon.

The moon project is really a joke. But people quickly realized that Gmail is a reality, the service will serve as a platform for running corporate Google applications, a range of free functions for mailing, Collaborative applications, including including e-mail (Gmail), calendars, documents and spreadsheets, slideshow capabilities, instant messaging (Google Talk), wikis (Google Sites) and iGoogle.

When launching Google Apps for businesses in February 2007 for $ 50 per user for a year, Google has put themselves on par with previous faces like Microsoft and IBM, both The company offers office software and corporate email systems.

However, this is not a flat path for Google Enterprise (the name used for a branch of the company responsible for Google Apps). According to Jonathan Edwards, an analyst at Yankee Group, that Google is facing the unwillingness (open) of IT organizations (and their CIOs), people consider Google Apps only as a product. Consumers do not have the security, support and reliability required for enterprise software.

Google must fight for user consensus

The perception of Google's customer orientation towards IT organizations is quite good for email. Recent statistics were made by the popular CIO magazine, the results of the implementation with more than 300 participating units, only 18% of them considered email as a service for the business sector. However, more than 50% said they did not trust Gmail and alluded to security reasons that are the main barriers to that.

For these customers, the decision to accept Google Apps in the business is entirely technical. However, according to Edwards, many companies do not accept that their data (especially e-mails) are stored outside their company's walls (in Google's data center). They are concerned that this problem will cause them to conflict with rules like Sarbanes-Oxley, a law that requires companies to be ready to verify their data and know exactly where it is.

Analysts say that is a problem Google has been pursuing to acquire security firm (Postini), a security firm that provides services for storing and encrypting newsletters. Google also offers customer service level agreements (SLA) and IT roadmaps (IT roadmaps) (a project that outlines how technology will work in the future), typical traits. inherent in a contract between a software company and a company that buys their product.

Google Apps believes time (and IT value) will be the main aspect that helps them succeed

Google officials know very well the challenge in convincing corporate IT organizations so they can be an enterprise software vendor. However, the leaders of Google Enterprise and Google Apps still believe that they will win the same time with the same reasons as SaaS firms (software as a service), as Salesforce.com did before. .

According to Dave Girouard, president of Google Enterprise, a branch that provides Web-based software like Google Apps, allows IT organizations to realize the true value of saving costs by using the number of machines. fewer owners in maintaining and performing continuous (non-stop) system upgrades.

' IT resources are often very scarce for companies, and for most people, they should not manage email servers but should work on things that can help win competitors '. Girouard said that.

In addition, the popularity of Gmail for customers can increase the number of users and the ability to approve in large organizations.

Rebecca Wettemann, vice president and advisor to Nucleus Research, also sees this potential. ' Users start asking,' Why is this problem easier between home and company? ' Many software companies are trying to improve the features in the customer field and bring them into the business sector. Google is a great place to do that , 'said Wettemann.

Google Apps with Microsoft Office: Being a friend, not hostile

The spread of Gmail and Google's popularity as a leading search engine on the Web have made Google Apps more interested in businesses: what happens if you pay less or it costs no money for online software and acquires the usability of documents and spreadsheets similar to those used with Microsoft, but it costs a lot of dollars to buy copyrights to use Office?

Girouard and some other Google Apps leaders had two responses to such claims: First, in the context of large businesses, Google looked at their software as a supplement, not a thing. Replace Microsoft Office. With only Gmail and schedule, he admits to making Google Apps present in their businesses and users as an option.

'This is a matter of email and schedule, where you have problems coexisting with users and not using Google, on the side of documents, this is not a problem because people can use both [ Google Apps and Office] and use what suits their specific tasks'.

Second, Google does not focus on the quality of features embedded in the product, but instead focuses on allowing users to work online in real time. In other words, there is absolutely no problem with Google when someone composes content in the Google Apps interface or Microsoft Word.

' Google Apps is used in conjunction with other applications, and we believe that will be a novelty. In an Internet-based model, there will be more choices, mixes and comparisons for firms than standardizing on a firm . '

In terms of features, Google Apps design and management participants say they focus on empowering each feature for users instead of sealing new functions in the software for the sake of it.

' This is not a 503 feature application to compete with the 502 feature app that I think about the app with about 15 really powerful and really useful features ,' said Rajen Sheth, who directed production for Google Apps said so.

Security issues and principles: You will feel comfortable with Google

Google Apps products

Consumer : Anyone who has a Gmail account can access the consumer version of Google Apps. This version includes several major functions like Gmail, Calendar, Docs & Spreadsheets, Talk and Google Sites. Each user will have a 6.7GB storage space.

Standard : This version is used by many small and medium sized businesses and is also provided completely free of charge (with advertising sponsorship). It includes issues with consumer versions but also allows companies to use their own email addresses (instead of @gmail) and have mobile access, an administration control panel. tablets, email conversion tools and online support.

Premier : For $ 50 per user per year, this version allows you to have up to 25GB of storage and no accompanying ads.It has an email security feature provided by Postini, which has APIs to enable organizations to integrate Google Apps with a single sign-on mechanism in systems and emails.Besides, there is 24-hour support.

The philosophy of living around Google's information security is quite simple: your data will be safer than your own protection if protected by Google.

' It is somewhat a reality of those who oppose SaaS, but to be honest, this is absolutely true. We have been told by officials in the US government: 'We think our data will be safer with Google than hosting it on our own servers.' 'Girouard said.

Google provides customers with a number of security issues in the undisclosed agreement. Even so, on a practical level, analysts say Google's acquisition of Postini helped their efforts to show that they are very concerned about keeping data safe for businesses. The Google Apps premier version has a Postini console to manage mail security.

' Postini has helped Google Apps with some problems because Postini has a security product that has been approved and trusted by many businesses ,' Edwards said.

Google has also received a certificate of accreditation (SAS 70), which requires a close examination of the company's internal security controls. Such certification serves as an important step for SaaS companies to introduce to customers.

While Google and Girouard officials increase the value of shares on the enterprise value of online applications, analysts argue that the company's status for customers makes it more difficult. in defeating IT organizations compared to what SaaS companies have faced in the past.

Nuclues Research's Wettemann said that most people are wondering whether their business data should go to search for all ordinary customers using Google's search bar. Wettemann said: ' It is completely grounded , consider what they do with Google Health, and people wonder if they will be able to rely on Google to search for records of their health status. me? The answer here is obviously not, but it makes people sometimes have such thoughts in mind . '

Google collaboration with SaaS Salesforce.com

To help businesses feel more secure and understand the issue more clearly, Google collaborated with a company that is very knowledgeable about security issues, SaaS, on Salesforce.com, a website that sells customer relationship management software (CRM) for Business on the Web.

Back in April, Google and Salesforce.com signed a partnership, in this signing, the basic version of Google Apps will be completely free for Salesforce.com customers. The deal opened a new selling channel for Google Apps to sell the product to businesses.

' It is a great thing because Salesforce.com has been working in this field for longer than we have ,' Girouard said.

Above the open design of Google Apps

Google Apps is designed broadly based on Google's philosophy of life that the Web should be open to customers and businesses to use as a platform for creating new applications. In that way, Google Apps has used a lot of application programming interfaces (APIs) to allow third-party developers to build their applications on it.

The advantage of this strategy is that it helps Google to add features to Google Apps so that software engineering teams and developers focus on the main functions of the software, not taking much time for creation. Products. For example, Google spreadsheet software has recently been provided.

Sheth and his Google Apps project team have focused on what he calls 80% of usage - meaning he wants to build an application to have 80% of users at each company, that's all. The features they will need. Therefore, when people complain about the spreadsheet does not have the ability to stand up, then he has allowed to open the platform of Google Apps to perform its work.

The third group is a company called Panorama, a company focused on Business Intelligence (BI) software. It used Google Gadgets to allow people to build or place applications on Google spreadsheets. By referring to the capabilities of third-party developers, analysts say Google can innovate its products and reduce static.

Building a community of Google developers can help them look like what was done to Microsoft a few years ago in creating an ecosystem of experts growing around Windows, according to an analyst. . Last week, Google helped attend the conference in San Francisco and outlined its plans to invest in third-party developers. ' If you have a growing community of experts behind you, you will get innovation and innovation every day, ' says Edwards.

They built a tight integration with existing email and calendar systems like Outlook and Exchange and will continue to link to systems to move forward. Google Docs & Spreadsheets (documents and spreadsheets) can import and export files into PDF, Office files or openoffice.

' One of the philosophy of life that we want to show is that we do not acknowledge that we are alone here, which are built to work with applications that customers already have and on the hypothesis ', Sheth said.

Social

Traditional email and production tools for businesses are not anti-social. For example, if a user has compiled a document on Microsoft Word, the ability to share it with other colleagues in real time is very limited. In most organizations, the trend is to email this document to colleagues or if the company uses Microsoft SharePoint or Office Live, they can check it in or out of the centralized data warehouse.

With Google Apps, sharing ideas, even with basic production tools is a prominent issue and a central component. For example, with Google Docs, users edit and edit online documents and changes happen in real time.

Google has recently added social software like wikis to Google Apps investment portfolio. Google Sites, as its name suggests, allows people in the enterprise to use wiki technology (the technology Google has acquired from Jotspot) to build websites and intranets without much programming skills.

When all these tools are included in Gadget, and transferred between different applications, Sheth believes that users can build more personal and business connections.

Google path: Rapid development and fast release

Like some companies like IBM and Microsoft, Google offers IT roadmap service and agreement agreements (customers and partners must sign an agreement to see details). But Google is different from its method in the software development cycle compared to previous members (most software applications change every year or every two years). According to Google's model, small changes will increase the appearance with greater frequency.

' What we have to do as a network-based platform is to implement repetitive problems. Many of our products have a frequency increase of two to four times , 'Sheth said.

The rapid development and fast release cycle may be good for Google but how IT organizations will react to those fast changes, said Tom Austin, a Gartner analyst. He was also the one who reminded Microsoft and IBM to create roadmap details in a year or years in the future. ' Google should offer roadmap within 6 months and they will make clear their intentions, ' he said.

Austin cited the argument for this number because of the development of an online software and the fact that Google has encountered a lot of customer feedback in using their products. Therefore, Google has been cautious about how features will be added in Google Apps.

' I do not think they will be perfect from the start, they will equip to avoid major errors and will repeat the release after release to ensure that they do not mess and give up. run away from users ', Austin said.

Another philosophical adjustment that businesses must make: Google only introduces a minimum number of offline functions. While Google Gears API launched its offline mode for Google Docs & Spreadsheets in April, a Gmail version is still not available for Google Apps users.

Customers and businesses

It seems perfectly reasonable for Gmail and then Google Apps to start as online tools for customers. After all these issues, Google's philosophy of life has built its search business on the minds of web users: if a website is popular and appropriate, Google will recognize it and implement those better change in its search results.

Meanwhile Google faces the challenge given by analysts when IT organizations worry about their business data stored with customer data, then Google considers standing between businesses and customers. Act as a competitive advantage.