There Is NO Google Apps Love in the Enterprise
Google wants to change ALL the Microsoft software rules. BUT, are enterprises really “crazy to buy packaged software,” as the Googler in Chief ridicules?
Microsoft ridicules “Google’s optimism as wishful thinking,” and so do enterprises themselves, as I have been chronicling, reporting and analyzing from the field since I heard Michael Lock, Director of North American Sales for Google Enterprise, declare “Death to the (Microsoft folder) hierarchy,” one year ago at the Googleplex in New York City, when I broke the news of a scheduled Q1 2007 launch of Google Apps for the Enterprise.
Given the “explosion” of unstructured data in the enterprise, “old methods of information management don’t work,” Lock asserted. Google Enterprise Solutions makes organizational life as “fast and effective” as a personal search at Google.com, he underscored.
“Google is a different kind of technology company, we build technology products that people love, not that they have to use,” Lock concluded.
Google love belongs in the enterprise is the Google Apps Premiere pitch that I have heard first hand from Google execs multiple times since in NYC: Kevin Gough at the Enterprise Search Summit in May, Matthew Glotzbach at Interop in October and Michael Lock once again at the Googleplex in June.
One year ago, I asked Lock for a projection of when Google will succeed in bringing the “Death to the hierarchy” he heralded. Lock told me that forward thinking enterprises are moving away from hierarchical data organization, but no specific date for an absolute demise of the “hierarchy” was provided.
Nonetheless in his return visit to the NYC Googleplex eight months later, Lock said in the affirmative: “Hierarchies are dead.” “Data has changed and it doesn’t come in columns and rows,” Lock assured.
REALLY? I asked Gough in May, “Why can’t Google make any serious money in Enterprise Search?” Just as he did not have a convincing answer, Google does not have a winning Enterprise case. In fact, not only is the much ballyhooed Googley consumerization of the enterprise NOT happening, corporate decision makers are wondering if Google Enterprise is a joke!
While the two-day enterprise event Gough presented to in May was touted to IT managers as the place to be for “learning strategies and building the skill sets you need to make your organization’s content not only searchable and findable,” consumer search king Google was not the talk, but the joke, of the Enterprise town. Keynote expert insights and blustery IT consultant pitches made Google a target of enterprise derision, an unusual position for “everyone’s favorite garage band” to be in.
From a pointed “I don’t want to be lucky in enterprise search” allusion to the “silly” consumer facing “I’m feeling lucky” button at Google.com, to a Googzilla pastiche of Google’s Sergey & Larry founding duo, Google Enterprise was not accorded the hero’s welcome Google’s YouTube has become accustomed to.
The Google Enterprise keynote was a joke at Interop just two months ago, which even conference producer Lenny Heymann admonished Glotzbach for, on stage, as I recount in Interop: Citrix XenSource Flys as Google Crashes.
The “inspirational” Google Enterprise concluding Glotzbach keynote message: A YouTube worthy home video “clip” of his infant “tech savvy” girl playing with the iPhone, while dissing (Microsoft) smartphones!
Google may be laughing at Microsoft, but the Enterprise is laughing at Google. MORE on why TINY Google Web Services Lag BIG Microsoft Business:
Google Confirms: Enterprise Apps is NO Microsoft Office Killer
Google Chokes with Postini: Billion Dollar Office Apps Giveaway
Schmidt to Ballmer: Stop Stealing MY Office Collaboration Lines!
IBM Confirms: Google Poses NO Enterprise Threat
ALSO: Google Has Insomnia: Mrs. Manber Beats 21,300,017 SERP and AdWords! and Google Zeitgeist: $200 University Payola AdWords Scam and Google Warning: How GOOG 411 Tricks Consumers and Google Knol: The End of Google.com, NOT Wikipedia