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96 Comments
- Onetrack, on 10/12/2007, -12/+37Yes.. I've switched the company I work for all over from exchange to google apps for small business, its been fantastic. I can't say enough how easy it is to manage rather than having a dedicated box for exchange. Note: they had the server installed a couple years ago by a guy who quit, they'd been running on it since.
They can get their email anywhere, they get their calendaring, its all web based so its system agnostic, if a machine goes down they don't lose their email.. they need something from home and there it is, all the benefits of gmail.
It makes using office / outlook like something from the caveman days. - darkspire, on 10/12/2007, -3/+18As the article pointed out (I have no idea if you read, as it just looks like your experience/opinion) there are huge privacy and regulatory implications to using Google's apps for your business. If they were selling the Google Appliance with their web apps on them that would be a completely different story, but storing all my business email, documents, etc on servers owned by Google is something that I wouldn't do even if regulations would allow it.
- looksliketrent, on 10/12/2007, -0/+15It supports quite a few formats.
It can load/import Word, OpenOffice, RTF, HTML and plain text files.
It can save/export to the same formats as well as PDF and zipped HTML.
Although, I'd at least make sure you have some native word processor available, as network outages are a bit of a pain with web services. - chicagobiker, on 10/12/2007, -4/+19It's all gravy until Google suffers a six hour outage this summer on the day you're team is trying to land a company saving deal and it falls through and you find out that EULA you agreed to with Google leaves them blameless that you lost business based on their error.
Google apps is a nice gimmick for college kids, or to show what nonsense you can do in a web browser. But doing your companies budget planning on a spreadsheet hosted at Google and keeping your confidential contracts, etc. at the same is ridiculous. And if your small business can't afford a $400 office application suite, well, you're not really a business.
Oh yeah, and lets not forget them rolling over and handing all of your company papers to the government at the most casual request. - j0nheck, on 10/12/2007, -7/+21If Google Apps (namely GMail) supported IMAP--i'd be all over that...
- underthelinux, on 10/12/2007, -4/+17I think all those bullets for cons really outweigh the pros right now.
"Google Apps is incomplete."
I think that about sums it up - it certainly can't replace office (yet). And something like VBA is an integral part of our processes. I know it stinks and all, but that's just the way it is.
I think what would be nice is an offline portal for it. I suggest an OO portal that can sync with the google docs and spreadsheets. - DaveClarkOne, on 10/12/2007, -4/+15Uh, I think this is a hard sell. Being reliant upon an internet connection for software isn't viable if you're mobile and unwilling to pay for a wireless signal. ASP's are fine when you have secure connections, but wireless isn't really offering the stability and speed of having Office on your machine. Plus, I wouldn't switch if Google PAID me, because my time is worth something, so why would I commit hours to learn something new (and less powerful)? Mind you, I am NOT a big fan of Microsoft. I just think this is ill-conceived.
- redxii, on 10/12/2007, -1/+12Sensitive documents stored on third-party servers FTW?
If you want employees to access their documents on the company's servers without setting up VPN then make your own web interface for it. - kavery, on 10/12/2007, -3/+13I just wouldn't want to have to rely on a constant internet connection to access my documents.
Imagine being on a flight, not having a broadband card and not being able to access your documents. - inactive, on 10/12/2007, -2/+129000 signatures and no result. Keep up the great work.
- fatdog789, on 10/12/2007, -4/+13If you think that Office is something out of the Caveman days, then GApps is Pre-Cambrian.
- Precision, on 10/12/2007, -12/+21Google Apps is too limiting. Open Office sucks. Microsoft Office 2007 wins.
- brd6644, on 09/01/2009, -1/+9I never understood this obsession with making *every* application web-based. Everyone has fast, cheap computers nowadays. Why put everything online and create a degraded user experience as a result? What's next, an online Photoshop clone? Good luck pushing all that raster data over the 'net unless you're sitting on a fiber-op connection.
Funny how Wired overlooked the coolest feature in all of Google Apps: online multi-user document collaboration. They'd be better off focusing on the kinds of features that a traditional desktop app isn't likely to have any time soon. - somekids, on 10/12/2007, -2/+10I don't think people should switch to Google apps just yet; it's simply too impractical. Writely (their word processor) does not have proper support for tabs and advanced formatting. Furthermore, there is no presentation application. Finally, the online factor (as mentioned in the article) also works against Google Apps. Companies do not want their sensitive data stored on Google's servers and even though fast internet is widespread, it is still not everywhere.
- inactive, on 10/12/2007, -4/+12Yeah .. what a rip off, $150 for software that'll last a 3, 4 or 5 year degree is a joke. You should have paid $50 a year for a stripped down version that requires an internet connection to use. At least then you could say "I couldn't do my presentation because there isn't any presentation software in Google's Attempted Office, and the dog ate my INTERNET CONNECTION!".
- inactive, on 10/12/2007, -0/+7The "Google will go down when you need it most!" argument isn't all that great, to be honest.
You are essentially assuming that your company has the capability of keeping a complex back-end office system running with better uptime than Google. I've heard and occasionally experienced my fair share of Exchange and MS Office-related horror stories.
The nice thing about Google Apps is that they do a good job of keeping things running, and *all* you need is the internet and a browser. No VPNs for accessing it from home, no multiple copies to worry about (one on my flash drive, one on the network, one on my laptop), etc. It brings a simplicity to business, without the hassles of servers, IT staff, etc.
That said, I think the spreadsheet and word processor have a hard time even standing up to Word and Excel 95 in terms of functionality. They suck at importing documents as well. They also can't seem to produce a moderately printable document without exporting to PDF. Except for collaboration, I don't quite understand why businesses would jump on so fast. The simplicity is a double-edged sword... - trnscndr, on 10/12/2007, -5/+12If it supports .doc, I'm in.
- inactive, on 10/12/2007, -6/+13or you retards could actually buy the software
- ArchAngel21x, on 10/12/2007, -1/+8I just paid $150 for the student edition of Office, so no.
- tdowling, on 10/12/2007, -0/+7It's a lot cheaper than the standard edition, and you get 3 licenses. For those who want to go the legit route, it's not that bad of a deal (by Microsoft standards at least).
- inactive, on 10/12/2007, -1/+8The email portion might replace Exchange, but stripped down, JavaScript alternatives are never going to replace Word, Excel, Powerpoint etc.
Until browsers have a way to work with local file systems and a more complete environment / language than JavaScript businesses are going to sacrifice speed, efficiency and features for portability.
Office is already more portable than the internet via laptops.
Nobody's game to release browsers and update/standardise a language that let you interact with a computer and have full control of the interface, access to the file system etc. - inactive, on 10/12/2007, -5/+11It is not going to take ANY market share away from MS Office. Zero.
- omghi2u2, on 10/12/2007, -2/+8Hmm, $50 per year? Office versions usually have a 3-4 year life cycle in the corporate world.
And since noone in corporate pays retails for Office, it's not really a good deal either. - mtcow, on 10/12/2007, -3/+9Gmail really needs IMAP.
Request it from Google: https://services.google.com/inquiry/gmail_suggest/
Petition: http://www.petitiononline.com/igmail/petition-sign.html (9000 signature already) - Atomic1fire, on 10/12/2007, -5/+11you know google apps has a free version
right? - underthelinux, on 10/12/2007, -2/+8If you haven't found a use for powerpoint that means you're not high enough on the food chain.
- PermaNoob, on 10/12/2007, -2/+8Next thing you know Google will issue your drivers license, tax ID numbers, birth, death, and marraige certificates.........
- Wonderkind, on 10/12/2007, -0/+5As soon as one decent sized company makes headlines for losing a fortune because of any sort of connectivity problem, or gets cracked by the competition, GApps will disappear faster than a fart in a hurricane.
In Florida, after Hurricane Ivan, we had phones in a few days but cable took weeks. - verifex, on 10/12/2007, -0/+5I don't mean to bring reality into this conversation but, Google Apps is not a serious solution for businesses and here is why:
1. Not owning the data storage system, Googles own servers in this case; A business cannot make rigorous backups of that data.
2. Sensitive banking/medical/governmental data cannot be stored in a non-encrypted web-accessible place.
3. Since the service is free, Google obviously isn't going to give a crap if your data if it happens to disappear one day. (e.g. http://www.techcrunch.com/2006/12/28/gmail-disaster-reports-of-mass-email-deletions/)
4. Finely grained access control is much harder to achieve when you only can use the simple access controls Google gives you.
And after all that, I can say that Yes I use Google Apps, they ARE pretty cool, but they have their time and place for use. - ROFLance, on 10/12/2007, -13/+18Web based apps will never be as good as the real thing.. and besides, $50 a year.. when you can pirate office for free? psh.
- tm8992, on 10/12/2007, -0/+4"imagiine planning ahead and saving docs you need to your HD before you leave."
And how do you plan to open/edit those documents without access to Google Apps? You'd need something like, say, office or OO. That defeats the purpose, kind of. - diggduggjoe, on 10/12/2007, -2/+6I use OO and find it works great. I use it for word processing, spreadsheets and even simple databases. For the price it is priceless. MS Office is a great piece of software which is over-priced. As for Google apps, I will stay with my own mail and file servers for now. I just do not see that anything else is secure. I have many people I communicate with using my webmail server and every email is secure. It is encrypted the entire time without any training in encryption to the users.
Google will get there and MS will drop their prices. All is well in the free market. - tjpeople, on 10/12/2007, -0/+4Nice idea, but i hope they continue to make there existing progs better.
Also will this mean Gmail with no longer be beta? Can you really sell a beta program? - Caliente, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3rofl! nice call underthelinux.
- judsond, on 10/12/2007, -1/+4Agreed, not to mention desktop level integration with other 3rd party apps that assume you have office. Also, how does google feel about protected health information? Does storing all your documents on their servers have any HIPAA or Sarbanes-Oxley considerations? You bet.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HIPAA
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sarbanes-Oxley_Act
And I'm a huge google fan, but until they add this to their OneBox solution so it can be hosted by the customer this isn't going very far for most companies. Even then I think it's only competition to exchange, not to office. - understudy, on 10/12/2007, -1/+4I like having physical possession of the data. Not that I worry about Google suddenly going down, but still it's nice to know that the files are nearby and not being combed through for marketing purposes.
That's just me though.
_ - bepo, on 10/12/2007, -1/+4I think that if you check your list you will see that Exchange does all of those things... I'm just sayin'
- cbergeron, on 10/12/2007, -2/+5They also get the added bonus of having EVERYTHING and ANYTHING that gets worked on in any way supervised by a single corporation that "DOES NO EVIL".
Yeah, I think Microsoft used to say that for a while too - back in the 80's.
"They whom forget the past shall be condemned to repeat it." (or something like that). - inactive, on 10/12/2007, -2/+4Weak because it sounds like "someone punches me every day, but I won't change things because then I *might* get kicked".
Many of these arguments I've seen here could be used against MS Office and Exchange as well as anything else for that matter.
Try to understand that these things are not black and white and that different products fit with different people and businesses. Making blanket statements about the uselessness of Google Apps while ignoring the same failings in other products is just due to bias. It's become cool to hate Google, just like it used to be cool to love Google. - scronline, on 10/12/2007, -11/+13Very good, so let's hope that your company doesn't have any "confidential" data they're dealing with then. It is now law that anything transmitted over public networks is... public.
Beyond that, Google is one of the most overrated companies on the planet. I'll use other products, thanks. - jcs_goog, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2Nice article, thanks.
- Hayaemsay, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2If the internet's out, you're screwed.
- deanypop, on 10/12/2007, -1/+3I'm shocked at how many people are focusing on the easy target (Google Docs and Spreadsheets), and ignoring the rest.
I actually did a bit of spelunking on their site - between Google's offering, and a few third party tools, you're looking at around $100-150 per user per year to completely outsource your email, IM, calendaring, single sign-on/corporate directory auth, and corresponding compliance monitoring (for email, at least).
That, for a medium-sized business, is a very very nice price point. Keep MS Office for the desktop - yay. :/ But, for the server-side, free up your admins to do the really meaningful/pushing at the edges IT, instead of babysitting email infrastructure? HELL YES. Especially now that the legal discovery rules for email, IM, etc have become so byzantine and resource-intensive.
The pieces I noticed that would be nicer from a "real business" perspective that are missing (but hopefully not for long, with their reasonably-rich APIs):
1) IM logging, filtering, and recovery/search functionality (still possible if you proxy through an IM firewall - but Google should be able to BE my IM firewall, too... Or maybe that is considered evil?);
2) Project management! As nice as the calendaring is, having it tie into a tool for tracking milestones/projects would be stellar. Perhaps a CentralDesktop or BaseCamp integration with Google Calendar would work? Still, if I'm going to outsource/ASP anything, let's not have a huge entangled web of providers, please!
3) IMAP access for email. Why I didn't make this number one I'll never know. This they need YESTERDAY. As far as email alone goes, it's really the only missing piece.
4) In Google Calendar, an easy way to manage shared resources (conference rooms), and resolve scheduling conflicts (first available free time for all invitees).
There are some other minor niggles, but we're looking at server room upgrades/virtualization right now, to make life more manageable... But if we could kick out the mail server cluster, the calendar server, and not need to start building an internal IM solution, that would easily be worth the price over 3-5 years - and then we'd free two of our guys up for really interesting/fun projects.
I realize a lot of folks are coming at this as individuals, and others just get scared away when looking sideways at the regulatory implications... But this is a solid* mid-market offering, and based on Google's history, it's going to get much much better in an unbelievably short amount of time. - sexycommando, on 10/12/2007, -1/+3Seriously. If Google Apps can't even beat Open Office in features or price, and hardly anyone has switched to Open Office, how the hell is it supposed to beat MS Office?
- schoate09, on 10/12/2007, -2/+4I'll be willing to try them along with MS Office 2007. No reason to switch yet, but they're a decent alternative to the java crap train wreck known as openoffice.
- Stonekeeper, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2sell me a box with it on (no, not rent) and I'll be happy.
- bhess, on 10/12/2007, -2/+4I don't follow the author's logic on the "Cost" item. How is $50 a year a good deal?
If you're a home user, you can buy the home edition of Office 2007 for MSRP $149. As long as you keep it for 3 years it's a better deal, and everyone in the house can use the software, not just one user (unless you want to share a Google account amongst your whole family?). For that cost, you get Word, Excel, PowerPoint and Outlook, all of whose features totally blow away the Google apps by comparison.
If you're a business user, and you don't have a Volume License Agreement, unfortunately you can't really legally buy the home edition. The standard edition costs $350, which is 7 years of the Google apps at $50 a year. MS Office will work fine for 7 years (Office 2000 works just fine today), and you get to have PowerPoint and Outlook. So the cost difference isn't as stark as it is for home users, but it's still not a better buy.
Besides all that, the largest complaint from most people about the MS Office suite is not that its features are lacking, but rather, that it's too expensive. Google's suite that costs more and has fewer features doesn't seem to be a better deal. - Prysorra, on 10/12/2007, -1/+3I can't believe anyone's missed the obvious analogy - crossing the download barrier.
Google Apps is the start of something.
Google Apps --> ??
Google Maps --> Google Earth. - kkirk, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Office will live on because Microsoft's ability to tie it to their enterprise systems and corporate America is a long way from moving to another solution. I run OO at home and finally can say it can replace Office for most users.
- deanypop, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Just curious, but why would you want to mix your personal and business Google accounts? Premier is really aimed at businesses, and almost all businesses will want to have a clear separation of relevant and personal mail/calendaring when possible.
But, yeah, having another segment (Google Apps Home Domain Vanity Edition) for a lower price would* be nice. -
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