Interop NYC: Microsoft vs. Google Enterprise Showdown?
Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer engaged in his trademark Google chiding during his CTIA Wireless keynote today in Silicon Valley.
More Microsoft vs. Google fireworks may be in the conference cards this week in Silicon Alley, at the Interop extravaganza where both Google Enterprise guru Matthew Glotzbach and Microsoft Interoperability & Standards expert Tom Robertson are featured keynoters.
Of particular note in Ballmer’s remarks today:
He said unlike other competitors such as Apple, Microsoft is comfortable trying to span both the enterprise and consumer markets. He said it actually took 15 years for enterprise customers to take Microsoft seriously. Now, the company is trying to play in both sides of the fence….with increasingly consumer-friendly products.
Google is attempting its own unique stradling of markets, believing it can remake a hard-core enterprise sector in its lightweight Googley, consumer image. I have seen top Google Enterprise execs spin a wistful Google tale of ”consumerization of the enterprise” many a time:
Experience the joy of offering your team the products they already know and love.
Users are spoiled by the experience and ease of use they get while searching information on Google.com. They wonder why they have to spend so much time looking around in differnet places for the enterprise information they need to do their jobs. After all, they can find all the information “out there” through a single box, the Google search interface.
Will we hear the same old ”Google love belongs in the enterprise” spiel at Interop, or will a newly Positini powered Apps team finally speak to the enterprise on the professional level expected?
The Microsoft keynote is setting up to be an interesting one; Robertson is GM of Microsoft’s Intellectual Property & Licensing Group and will speak on Redmond’s “approach of delivering ‘interoperability by design.’”
STAY TUNED FOR THE INTEROP EXCITEMENT!
MORE NOW: Google Chokes with Postini: Billion Dollar Office Apps Giveaway AND Autonomy vs. Google Search Appliance? No Contest: Google Enterprise Gets Defensive AND Microsoft Office Thunder to Blast Google Apps Cloud
UPDATE: Interop: Citrix XenSource Flys as Google Crashes and Google Confirms: Enterprise Apps is NO Microsoft Office Killer