Google Apps Meets Les Miserables: Enterprise IT Team DREAMS Big
Will the enterprise IT world arrive today on the job bracing for an employee revolution, facing inexorable worker demands for corporate happiness via Google Apps Team Edition?
So goes the Google Enterprise spiel, obligingly presented by pre-briefed media, both old and new:
Ben Worthen, The Wall Street Journal, wears his NOT-SO hard news objectivity on his headline sleeve: “Google marginalizes tech departments even more” How can the WSJ be so sure? Google PR told Worthen so:
Google is bottoms up, appealing directly to individuals, encouraging them to bring the tools they use in their personal lives into the workplace. To that end, Google built a feature into Team Edition that lets IT departments upgrade to the full corporate version of Google Apps if it realizes that a large number of its workers are using it.
Elinor Mills, CNET, leads with the Google PR talking point: ”Just like rogue employees in the 1990s forced instant messaging into corporations, the new Google Apps Team Edition being launched on Thursday offers a way for workers to slip a hosted apps service into the enterprise,” reinforcing the Google Enterprise marketing pitch:
“People are already using the consumer (hosted Google) apps in the workplace, like they did IM a decade ago,” said Jeremy Milo, senior marketing manager for Google Apps. “We’re trying to bring more security by introducing the notion of domain awareness.”
BUT, who is really forcing what where? Google may have dreams of a Les Miserables like “bottoms-up” employee cry of “We want our Google Apps,” but the enterprise IT world is having the last laugh, at Google Enterprise’s ongoing expense.
READ ALL ABOUT HOW There Is NO Google Apps Love in the Enterprise:
Postini: Will Google REALLY Mean Enterprise Apps Business? and
Google Chokes with Postini: Billion Dollar Office Apps Giveaway and
TINY Google Web Services Lag BIG Microsoft Business and
Google Confirms: Enterprise Apps is NO Microsoft Office Killer and
Schmidt to Ballmer: Stop Stealing MY Office Collaboration Lines! and
Microsoft Office Thunder to Blast Google Apps Cloud and
IBM Confirms: Google Poses NO Enterprise Threat
PLUS: LinkedIn To Mine User Data For Corporate Espionage and Poynt IM Local Search: Will Yellow Pages on BlackBerry Crack the Code? and Why Silicon Alley VCs Should Do Blogging Due Diligence, Too and Cuill? Google Vet Startups Pose NO Threat: FriendFeed, Howcast, Zillow