Why Google Sites Is BAD Business: ‘Til Death Do Us Part’?
Who says Google is a vulnerable, one-trick, (rich) pony!
I DO, of course, but the blogosphere, once again, comes to big, bad Google’s rescue, today dutifully co-hyping glowing Google speak spinning its latest Googley bestowal of entry level software, ”free,” to purportedly eager enterprise masses: Google Sites.
The CNET Editor-In-Chief, for example: The newly bumped up Dan Farber celebrates his “return to the blogosphere,” with a return to celebrating the purportedly “power” Google cloud, on behalf of Google:
In the future, Google Apps will add more capabilities for sharing video, a la YouTube, with group and voice capabilities, Glotzbach said. At this point Google doesn’t plan to create a marketplace for creators of Google Site templates and themes, but it will take advantage of the iGoogle gadgets and APIs that allow developers to embed objects with the service.
Google Sites is a key piece of functionality for Google Apps. It gives the suite a way to integrate all kinds of components in support of accomplishing a particular task. Adding social capabilities and a database to the suite will turn up the heat on Microsoft to show what it has waiting in the wings to go beyond the prodigious Microsoft Office.
All MUST be good for business in the Google cloud, then, if the CNET Editor-In-Chief vouches for a Google Apps anti-Microsoft prowess? NO!
While the lead CNET reporter, Farber, reposts, verbatim, paragraphs of Googley enterprise marketing speak, courtesy of product spokespeople Scott Johnston and Matt Glotzbach, the leader of the CNET reporting staff neglects to concern himself, or the readers of the publication he heads, with the real, not so Googley words that matter to the enterprise: THE GOOGLE FINE PRINT!
Here at Insider Chatter, however, I reveal the risks businesses face if they take Googlers up on their dangerous call to “free” software arms in an increasingly dark Google cloud.
Here is what Google’s Johnston and Glotzbach really have to say to prospective users of the new Google Sites in the enterprise, via their product’s TOS:
You agree that Google has no responsibility or liability for the deletion or failure to store any Content and other communications maintained or transmitted by Google services. You acknowledge that Google may have set no fixed upper limit on the number of transmissions you may send or receive through Google services or the amount of storage space used; however, we retain the right, at our sole discretion, to create limits at any time with or without notice.
Google reserves the right at any time and from time to time to modify or discontinue, temporarily or permanently, Google services (or any part thereof) with or without notice. You agree that Google shall not be liable to you or to any third party for any modification, suspension or discontinuance of Google services.
WOW! Not much of a Google Enterprise sales pitch!
Google is oblivious to the enterprise need for proprietary control of its own data, but Google is crystal clear on ITS determination to control the proprietary data of the world’s enterprises:
Upon the termination of your use of Google services, including upon receipt of a certificate or other legal document confirming your death, Google will close your account and you will no longer be able to retrieve content contained in that account.
COLD, COLD GOOGLE!
MORE ON THE VERY RISKY GOOGLE “ENTERPRISE”:
There Is NO Google Apps Love in the Enterprise and
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
ALSO: The Web Economy Rejoices: Google IS Overrated and Due For BIGGER Fall! and Google vs. Microsoft: The REAL Health Platform War Story