Google Apps to Become Paid Service

FredDC writes "Business Week reports Google Apps is becoming a paid service soon for companies who wish to use it for their domain. Disney and Pixar are reportedly thinking about switching to Google Apps instead of using Microsoft Office. Could this be the end of a monopoly? Or the start of a new one?"

Comments

Pixar's considering Google Apps?

[Whiney Mac Fanboy]

WTF? Why is Pixar considering Google Apps? Isn't Apple's .mac service up to scratch?

Anyway, I've been using Apps for my personal domain for quite a while. It's pretty great for a freebie - just point your mx records at google, create an admin account and google takes care of everything else. Setup catch all accounts, gmail accounts for different users, calender, gtalk, etc are all there.

But I won't continue to use it if it costs anything. Like I said, its great for a freebie.

Re:Pixar's considering Google Apps?

[Whiney Mac Fanboy]

So it's the killer widget instead of the killer office suite? Maybe Apple should be scared then. :P

It's an exchange killer, not an office killer.

Apple and Google don't compete. Apple has no need to be afraid of Google.

Re:Pixar's considering Google Apps?

[uhlume]

Ever hear of Writely? Google Spreadsheets? Presently? Why on earth would you assume that the current (beta) incarnation of Google Apps for Your Domain is anything more than an initial offering?

Re:Pixar's considering Google Apps?

[node 3]

Probably because it would seem weird for all *Pixar* employees to have "@mac.com" email addresses. .Mac is really an excellent service for the home user. For the enterprise, not so much (nor is it intended to be).

Pixar and Disney going with Google Apps would have significant implications (all good, I think) for .Mac.

Leads to open formats

[vijayiyer]

The use of Google Apps will not create a monopoly. Rather, it will precede a shift to real open formats (i.e., not Microsoft's XML implementations) which are application agnostic. Interfaces, rather than applications, are what must be open to truly benefit consumers.

Re:Let's see...

[anomalous cohort]

Contrary to the title, it's not MS-Office that google is going after, it is Exchange.

Every Exchange admin I have ever spoken with claims that it is a nightmare to set up and maintain. There is a trend now to outsource that functionality. Google is targeting that market.

Tinfoil hat time

[TinBromide]

Simply because a tiger hasn't eaten your face yet doesn't mean it won't in the future. We should be as suspicious of google as we are of any other big software company. Just because they have a catchy bumper sticker slogan doesn't inoculate them to the temptations of corporate culture.

Re:Tinfoil hat time

[EvanED]

Should we be suspicious of every large business that started out small?

Yes. (Then again, I tend to be very cynical about companies in general.)

At what point does a small, presumably non-corporate business become "big" and full of the "temptations of corporate culture"?

Hard to say, but if you can influence back door sessions of state legislatures I think that's a good indication you've crossed the boundary.

Re:Tinfoil hat time

[swillden]

Not answerable per-se, but any company with shareholders (in most countries, including the US) is legally obliged to ensure that it acts in the best interests of the company as a whole and the shareholders in particular.

Not true.

The officers of a corporation *are* legally required to operate the company in accordance with the articles of incorporation that define what the company's goals are. In most cases, a key goal in the articles is to increase shareholder value. But companies can (and are) formed with very different goals in mind. I could start a company whose primary goal is to waste its investors' cash as rapidly as possible while avoiding acquiring any tangible assets (the "Brewster's Millions" goal), and I would then be legally at risk if I were to invest shareholders' money in anything that might return a profit. Of course, it would probably be hard to find investors.

In Google's case, I'm not sure exactly what the articles of incorporation say, but I suspect they contain at least some of the things found in Google's IPO Letter. If that's true, then Google's execs do not, in fact, have the same obligation to focus on improving shareholder value that most company's do. Even if it's not in the articles of incorporation, the fact that Google made clear to potential investors that its primary goal is "to develop services that significantly improve the lives of as many people as possible" and that Google's leadership intends to focus on the long term even at the expense of the short term, means that shareholders can't claim that they expected Google to act outside of those parameters.

Working against all that, of course, is the fact that those who are in control at Google are also shareholders and see significant personal financial gain from increased stock price.

And when I'm not connected?

[ReallyEvilCanine]

Let's pretend $MegaCorp dumps MS Office and implements Google apps. What the fuck am I supposed to use to write my documents, spreadsheets and now presentations if I'm in a car, plane, train, backwards country -- wherever I can't jack into the Net? Notepad?

Locally installed apps still...

[Slashdot Junky]

This won't even put a dent in the M$ office suite installed base, because locally installed apps still work when the network is down and/or having problems.

Later,
-Slashdot Junky

Re:Locally installed apps still...

[amRadioHed]

Hell, even in smaller companies, My Document is quite commonly on a network drive, for backup purposes. Which sucks, btw, because Windows doesn't know what to do when your mounted network drives aren't available. Over two minutes of hanging while Windows tries to figure out that your file server isn't available? That's real reasonable when it takes the ping command no more than a few seconds to figure out the same.

No, because of a little thing called legacy data

[gravyface]

Seriously, for all the Web-based e-mail/office applications, I'm surprised at how little effort or thought is put towards migrating legacy data. SugarCRM and Gmail at least have some import capabilities (Outlook contacts in CSV format) but what about all of your old mail, calendar items, to-do/task lists, Excel macros, and Access databases? Every time one of my colleagues suggests yet-another-Web-based AJAX office suite, I shake my head and wonder how they expect existing organizations and individuals to switch without some sort of well-planned migration strategy?

Look, I'm not expecting some nifty migration wizard to automagically convert my existing data to $shinyWebbyOfficeSuite (I've been through enough Novell to Microsoft migrations to know that never works) but I'd like to see one of these would-be Office alternatives make a concerted effort to bring me on board besides marketing and hype.

Sarbanes-Oxley implications?

[FleaPlus]

Does anybody know what the implications of Sarbanes-Oxley are for doing this? After all, Disney is a public company, and SOX has a number of regulations regarding how public companies are permitted to store their data. Are hosted apps ok?

Re:Google server in a box?

[ScentCone]

I cant imagine a real company allowing its data to be housed outside its control.

Guess what: a lot of real companies can't imagine trusting their most important data to only their in-house IT guys. Otherwise there wouldn't be successful companies that handle the outsourcing of hosted apps, backups, e-commerce, and so on. And there are. There are also plenty of companies that thought they had it all under control internally, and totally blew it.