ECAR report on Google Apps
Are Google Apps ready for the enterprise? How about google as a company? Is software as a service ready? This report from the Burton group leans mostly toward no. They see google as focused on a consumer market, with a style and approach that serves them well in this market. But their contrarian business approach, lack of enterprise-level support, and product update cycle makes them a poor match for business needs. I found their comments on the update cycle of particular interest. As with many web 2.0 companies Google is constantly releasing incremental software updates, with little clear advance notice, and little transparency as to what feature updates are coming. If I was supporting a last user base in our corporate Google apps, I would not be happy to come in one day and be surprised to find all sorts of changes to the application.
I’m keeping my eye on Google Apps — it’ll be interesting to see how they develop the tools. And hopefully they’ll move towards a more tempting package of apps. But for now I agree that they’re not ready to meet my enterprise needs.
In February 2007, Google announced Google Apps Premier Edition (GAPE), a collaboration and communication solution offered as software as a service (SaaS). Initially combining a portal, e-mail, instant messaging (IM), calendars, document sharing, and concurrent document creation — all for the price of $50 per user per year — the solution rapidly caught enterprises’ imaginations.
This Burton Group study suggests that quickly adopting GAPE without understanding its quirks or looking at other alternatives is likely to become a career-limiting move. Happily, looking at the larger picture — studying a variety of SaaS-based collaboration and content solutions — is a career-enhancing move. Issues for higher education to consider include the SaaS delivery model, the capabilities of the solution, and Google as a company.
Creese, G., Google Apps in the Enterprise: A Promotion-Enhancing or Career-Limiting Move for Enterprise Architects? 2007, Collaboration and Content Strategies: In-Depth Research Report, Burton Group.
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