Google Apps Premier Edition Launches, Widely Used

Tookis writes "Google's online productivity suite (Google Apps) has already replaced Microsoft products at more than 100,000 small to medium enterprises. Additionally, it's been deployed for serious work-related projects at two of the largest companies in the world. Product manager for Google Enterprise Kevin Gough was quick to point out that although the premier edition of Google Apps only just launched, it's already been adopted by companies like GE, Procter & Gamble, Prudential and Loreal. He goes on to describe the role of Apps: to augment, not necessarily replace existing IT solutions. Just the same, he says, the role of Apps can be powerful where traditional services may be too expensive. Says Gough, 'There's a large segment that's under-served by today's productivity tools. Production workers and retail employees for instance. 48% of all employees actually don't even have an email address. That's because the cost of hardware, software and maintenance has made it prohibitively expensive to provide email to employees.'"

Comments

Return of the terminal

[Anonymous Coward]

Looks like client-server was a fad. The terminal is back, only now the mainframe is at another company and the terminal is called browser.

Re:Return of the terminal

[BrittanyGites]

It would be great if the terminal was just a browser, but to all intents and purposes you need a PC, running an OS to get a browser. That surely is a large part of the cost/management/security overhead. If we could have a 'hardware' browser only terminal then we are back to client/server. But wait a minute didn't Sun and to a lesser extend DEC with the VT1000 try this before ?

Re:Return of the terminal

[tedhiltonhead]

Well, not quite -- AJAX is a client-server technology. Looks like now we've got the best of both worlds.

Re:Return of the terminal

[BuR4N]

Sadly, not much have happned on the usability front comparing the average form based input page and the 3270 terminal system anon. 1972. Chances are that people is going to be fed up with subpar performacne and cluncky interfaces and head back to the "fat client".

Re:Return of the terminal

[Sobrique]

You could use a citrix delivered application, but I suppose that would't get you all that much. I suppose that's a reasonable comparison. Citrix + MS Office, vs. Google Apps. There's a lot of people who do the former, so I can see why there'd be a lot of people who'd opt for the latter.

Re:Return of the terminal

[Coryoth]

Looks like client-server was a fad. The terminal is back, only now the mainframe is at another company and the terminal is called browser.

Which seems a terrible shame really - surely there are better ways of running an application over a network than via a browser. After years of using the network transparency of X11 I find this whole move to browser based applications disappointing. Sure, the X protocol doesn't work well over slower connections (it's too chatty), but really wouldn't it be better to just fix those issues (such as with FreeNX) or write a better system so that we can actually have full normal GUIs instead of whatever can be kluged into a browser? Given the prevalence of web based applications I guess the answer is no. My best guess as to why is that, simply, Windows lack of network transparent display and market dominance trained people to have low expectations. Browser based stuff looks good in comparison to what's generally available for Windows so people assume it is a step forward instead of the step sideways that it appears to be to me.

Re:Return of the terminal

[Ngarrang]

It would be great if the terminal was just a browser, but to all intents and purposes you need a PC, running an OS to get a browser. That surely is a large part of the cost/management/security overhead. Such products already exist. They go by the name of Thin Client, among others. The thin clients I have had experience with I have found lacking. They each lacked the ability to be easily upgraded to keep up with current web technology. To use AJAX and other fancy web-based apps, you need an up-to-date browser that can be easily upgraded with the next new piece of technology comes out. *shrug* Just run linux on a PC and you can avoid the cost of a Windows PC being a terminal.

Re:Return of the terminal

[div_2n]

The power needed to properly run a GUI and all of its applications gave birth to the fat client. The server power needed to handle a large number of machines running GUIs hasn't been financially attainable for companies of all sizes until recent years. The history and progression of computing technology has been the driving force behind the major swing from thin client to fat.

But now we are in a new era where there is logical justification for a hybrid scenario where only some applications are on a "thin" basis. I don't think anyone should take this as a sign that the days of fat clients are immediately numbered. I don't think you can make that justification until true broadband is virtually ubiquitous even in extreme rural areas. I think we can all agree that is a long ways off.

Re:Return of the terminal

[fermion]

I have been saying this since the late 90's. Why put a full featured computer out in a plant or in the production floor, with full entertainment capability, when all one really needs is an input terminal. Of course if one uses MS products, then one has to use MS Windows, and one is stuck putting a full featured computer with a licensed copy of windows . It would be much better if one could use MS products to create a server application that would uses a generic browser frontend, on whatever machine was available. Of course such a situation may be why so many MS products create IE only interfaces. It fair, but may be another reason to move from MS tools.

In all fairness to the microcomputer, terminals are likely to be at least as expensive as computer, although the computer has about a fraction of the lifetime.

Re:Return of the terminal

[glas_gow]

There's also the question of standards. Standardising a X11-type protocol across platforms with common design elements, and not just heaping on the glue-code, would take time and would be pushed and pulled in different directions by vested interests. Browsers have already (to a greater or lesser degree) been through that process, and are in a better position to just roll out the services. I concur with the general sentiment, though, that clunky webpages, no matter how dynamic, aren't the ideal solution.

Re:Return of the terminal

[ClosedSource]

"Browser based stuff looks good in comparison to what's generally available for Windows so people assume it is a step forward instead of the step sideways that it appears to be to me."

Browser apps look better than most Windows apps? What are you smoking? X applications are hardly the benchmark for GUI quality either.

Re:Return of the terminal

[Anonymous Coward]

Browser apps look better than most Windows apps... with regard to network transparency. Windows' idea of network computing is to copy the complete user profile between server and client at login/logout.

Re:Return of the terminal

[misleb]

While I agree that something like X would be better as far as usability is concerned, the problem is maintaining application state. The stateless nature of HTTP is both a blessing and a curse. Generally speaking, the web server doesn't have to keep much in memory for the user. And if the user isn't doing anything, the server isn't doing anything. We can assume that that a good chunk of users will be idle at any given time, so not keeping the state in memory is an crucial to supporting large numbers of users. How many simutaneous complex X11 apps can one server (well, "client" in X11 speak) can one server host? Certainly not a number similar to a web server.

That said, it does kinda suck to see the lowest common denominator take over web applications. HTML and Javascript? Yuck! It is almost like driving a car powered by a model airplane engine. I'd almost rather see Java applets out there. It is too bad that Java doesn't integrate better with the browser and that there are so many Java versioning problems. I mean, it is pretty annoying when one applet requires one version of the Java VM and another applet requires a different VM. Fortunately OS X allows me to switch between them fairly easily, but I shouldn't have to.

-matthew

Re:Return of the terminal

[bigwave111]

A shame for whom? Ease of use to lessen training costs, simplicity without needing specified hardware, and a vast majority of workers whose interfacing with a computer consists of MySpace, Email, and chat. Technologically it could be considered a step sideways, but so was the Wii. It's all about user interactivity.

Re:Return of the terminal

[ClosedSource]

Only an X11 fan would assume that an unqualified use of the word "look" would have something to do with a network.

Which windows apps "copy the complete user profile between server and client at login/logout"?

Re:Return of the terminal

[Coryoth]

Browser apps look better than most Windows apps?

With regard to network transparency, yes they do. They "just work" over the network, running on a server, with no set up and no hassle (just as X11 apps automatically do). That's an attractive feature for anyone intertested in thin client apps.

Re:Return of the terminal

[AKAImBatman]

Such products already exist. They go by the name of Thin Client, among others. The thin clients I have had experience with I have found lacking. They each lacked the ability to be easily upgraded to keep up with current web technology.

If thin clients start deploying the Opera Browser, that could change. Look at the Nintendo Wii for an example: Full AJAX Support, DOM 2 APIs, WHATWG compliant*, Flash, SVG, etc. All it's missing is Java, which has a variety of OSS options on which to base a plugin.

* The Audio object doesn't actually do anything, but it's on their list of Things to Do(TM)

Re:Return of the terminal

[Anonymous Coward]

Which windows apps "copy the complete user profile between server and client at login/logout"? Parent didn't say "Windows apps". The Windows operating systems copy the user profile between server and client at login/logout.

Re:Return of the terminal

[ClosedSource]

He said "Browser apps look better than most Windows apps... with regard to network transparency." Last time I checked browser apps aren't OS's, so yes we are talking about apps, not OS's

Re:Return of the terminal

[massysett]

Sadly, not much have happned on the usability front comparing the average form based input page and the 3270 terminal system anon. 1972. Chances are that people is going to be fed up with subpar performacne and cluncky interfaces and head back to the "fat client".

Have you tried using Google Calendar? It is by far the MOST usable calendar app I have ever seen. Forget about forms. It's the only calendar app I've ever used that's actually intuitive. I can simply type "Dentist appointment on 2/24 from 10:00am to 11:00am at 1315 New Hampshire Ave" and GCal parses all this info into the appropriate chunks (date, time, location, etc) and stores it.

Last time I looked, it's the fat client that's stupid here. Outlook or GroupWise makes me jump through hoops on their forms. Tab to date, tab to time, tab to location, click and drag little widgets. It's Outlook and Groupwise that are using 1972-style forms. All they've done is put some pretty pictures on the forms and made them largely mouse-based (which actually makes them HARDER to use than 1972-style dumb terminal forms!)

Bad user interfaces are unfortunately quite common, but it's not a fat vs thin client thing. Google right now is an interface innovator. I'll take GCal, with its ability to quickly type in an appointment, over Outlook or GroupWise any day.

Re:Return of the terminal

[josepho]

I agree. Let's all run all our apps in Javascript and HTML!? I don't understand this huge push for web applications. Everyone has a very fast computer on their desk, why not take advantage of it instead of converting it to a telnet window. What about Java web-start? I think it's the best of both worlds - easy to deploy, it runs on the client box, and can provide a nice fast GUI experience. We can't convert everything to web-apps - what's next Autocad that runs in a browser? -Joe

Re:Return of the terminal

[Coryoth]

A shame for whom?

Developers and users of network transparent applications. Developers could be working with ordinary applications instead of constrained to what can be done with XML and javascript - indeed they could be using the many toolkits and libraries already available instead of having to roll new ones to fit into the space of web applications. Users could be presented with applications no different than any other desktop application (it just happens to be running on a foreign server somewhere) with all the much richer interactivity and lower learning curve associated with that instead of whatever can be crammed down a protocol that wasn't originally designed for applications.

I'm not saying web apps are bad - they're quite good, and they do achieve the network transparency that's been missing for many Windows users. I'm just saying that, had things gone a little differently, things could have been so much better. We could be running apps over the internet via protocols specifically designed to handle GUI apps. We could be running apps over the internet that don't need to be specially coded to work around the limitations of the available languages and protocols used to send them - just write a desktop app and have it automatically work over the network. I'm hoping that there's still time to change track and move toward real network transparency instead of kluging it on top of HTTP.

Re:Return of the terminal

[Anonymous Coward]

Are you perhaps stupid?

Re:Return of the terminal

[ady1]

Nice try but Ajax is in no way comparable to mainframe/terminal. It's essentially a intelligent/fat client. JavaScript is executed at client side and not server side.

Re:Return of the terminal

[ady1]

And no, server storage doesn't make it a thin client.

Re:Return of the terminal

[bill_kress]

That seems a rather narrow view.

Software is running on the client in this case.

What kind of a differentiation are you making here? Is it because the software is downloaded at runtime that you consider it a "Terminal?"--in other words, if they downloaded a jar once, would that "Fix" the problem you are perceiving, or must the software be delivered on a disk in order to be a "true" client-server app.

What the hell are you even bitching about??

Re:Return of the terminal

[iLogiK]

How about mozilla's XUL?

Re:Return of the terminal

[Anonymous Coward]

If the network is down, you not only lose network transparency, you lose the app. That's where I draw the line between client-server and mainframe-terminal.

Re:Return of the terminal

[ClosedSource]

The setup takes place on the client side for browser apps when you install and configure the browser. This is a bit like the argument that a Java app is more platform-independent than a 'C' app (but by the way you need to install a platform-dependent JVM to run programs).

Windows apps can be as "network transparent" as browser apps, but yes, like browser apps there has to be something installed on the client machine to make it possible.

Re:Return of the terminal

[Coryoth]

Yup, the difference, however, is that many more people expect to install a browser than expect to install extra client software to make general Windows apps more network transparent - people don't install a browser just to run web apps. This is why web apps are becoming popular: because most users to have a browser anyway (go on, just try and get a Windows install that has no browser) it provides a client for network apps that developers can reasonably expect the majority of users to already have installed. It's just that browsers don't make for particularly good client apps for network application because, simply put, it wasn't the broswers intended purpose. I am simply lamenting the fact that, had things been a little different, we could have ended up with a much better client app installed by default on most users machines. An example of this is X11, which is installed by default on pretty much every desktop UNIX machine (because it has the primary purpose of displaying GUI apps, even local ones), which provides a reasonably good client for network apps - it could be better, especially over slower or higher latency connections, but it would provide a better base than web browsers.

Re:Return of the terminal

[Coryoth]

An improvement, but you're still trying to push everything through HTTP, which is hardly a protocol designed for running GUI applications over a network. Ideally you'd use a special purpose network protocol designed with app display and transmission in mind (like, for example, X11 - it could be improved, but at least it was designed with network transparent applications in mind). Besides, it seems XUL isn't getting the traction that would be required to really take off as the web application standard - most web apps use AJAX or similar. Ultimately its about what you can expect the client/user to have. You can reasonably expect them to have a web browser, but expecting them to have a Mozilla based web browser which handles XUL is stretching a little.

Re:Return of the terminal

[zettabyte]

Someone mod the parent up.

I think XUL is a big gold mine waiting to be discovered.

Re:Return of the terminal

[ClosedSource]

I think the value of X11 is dependent on your perspective.

When you have limited client processing capability (as they did at the time of X11's development) it seems reasonable to make networking a core part of UI implementation because you really don't have any choice.

If you have powerful client machines, performing UI operations over a network seems unnecessarily indirect and inefficient. The idea of using a network layer even for a local UI seems really extreme (I don't know enough about the X11 implementation to know how much of a performance hit it creates).

Frankly I don't think we could have gotten to this level of Internet use so soon if Unix was the sole driving force. Early PC's and Mac's provided low-cost platforms that weren't powerful enough to run X11 in any reasonable way. They really bootstrapped the Internet from a client perspective. In the case of the PC, it boostrapped Linux which reinvigorated Unix as well. If we all needed Sun workstations to connect to the Internet, there wouldn't be many people doing it.

Re:Return of the terminal

[Heembo]

Dude, I wish I was still building cobol screen-scraping apps for terminals - so easy to code fast. This is the web where HTML, CSS, Javascript as well as service-side languages. The web is WAY more complex than the terminal world. Poor comparison, pal.

Re:Return of the terminal

[timeOday]

for example, X11 - it could be improved, but at least it was designed with network transparent applications in mind

X11 is a complete failure over the Internet. It's not just securing the protocol, that could be layered on. The problem is deeper; X11 is overly synchronized. Try running a web browser across the Internet using X. It's unusable. The first time you get an animated banner, it stalls, uploading every frame in full. Now try VNC (or even Remote Desktop on Windows), it works fine. You only see every 20th frame of the animation (in fact only fragments of frames) because it doesn't enforce synchronization. But the result is the app is usable.

Re:Return of the terminal

[anaesthetica]

"Dentist appointment on 2/24 from 10:00am to 11:00am at 1315 New Hampshire Ave"

That dentist is no good. There's a much better one at 21st and K NW.

Re:Return of the terminal

[Coryoth]

If you have powerful client machines, performing UI operations over a network seems unnecessarily indirect and inefficient. The idea of using a network layer even for a local UI seems really extreme (I don't know enough about the X11 implementation to know how much of a performance hit it creates).

How much of a performance impact does it have? None in any modern X11 implementation. It all gets handled via shared memory for local operation and is every bit as fast as Windows or Quartz (any percieved slowness is more due to the fact that many X11 implementations lacked double buffering and other tricks to make things look "smooth" and flicker free - in terms of raw drawing performance X11 was and is right up there; note that this has been fixed with more recent versions, see AIXGL etc.) That means with X11 you get no performance hit for local apps and complete network transparence for everything else. If you're going to criticise X11 then complain about the network protocols chattiness that makes it slow over internet (As opposed to local LAN) connections.

Re:Return of the terminal

[Coryoth]

The solution to that is to use NX, which was designed with the realisation that, indeed, the standard X11 protocol is too chatty to work well over the internet. With compression, and caching etc. provided by NX you get a perfectly responsive X session.

Re:Return of the terminal

[misleb]

Java web-start seems clunky to me. I played this game for a while (can't remember the name) which had half the game on a website (character management) and the game itself as a Java web-start thingy. Whenever I wanted to play, I have to go to the website, login, and download the little stub file. It was frustrating because I just wanted to be able to run the game from the Dock. Going through the browser to run a local app was awkward. Once you take your app to the Java VM, the browser just seems to get in the way. Might as well run it as a local app like everything else and implement a built in updater like Azureus.

-matthew

Re:Return of the terminal

[Virtual_Raider]

At my work they have this combination and its a huge snail crawling pathetically IMHO. The problem is that security is paramount so there is no way in hell they will be switching to 3rd party hosting of email or desktop applications. Information is just too sensitive. But I can see how this may be feasible for organizations that do not have such stringent security concerns.

OTOH, even though I'm a slight Google fanboy I'm quite sure that very soon we'll start reading horror stories about data loss and security breaches due to user carelessness. Organizations should make sure their employees understand the risks involved in handling company information over the internet, particularly when working off-site. But educating the user requires resources (i.e. Money) and a company switching to this model seems to have in mind spending less, not more.

Plus, no amount of money/training is going to fix the attitude of many people that just don't care. They'd have to overhaul the whole HR process and screen very carefully the people they are going to bring on board. Which again, costs money. Or maybe I just had too many bad experiences in this regard at my previous job :P

Re:Return of the terminal

[srussell]

Which seems a terrible shame really - surely there are better ways of running an application over a network than via a browser.

A-fricken'-men.

Mod parent up. Pleeeease.

--- SER

Re:Return of the terminal

[Anonymous Coward]

Thats probably a poor example. A webstart app should be able to place a shortcut to the application url so you can launch it locally.

The app should provide the login process, not the web site.

Re:Return of the terminal

[josepho]

Web-start might have changed then since you last checked it out. The first time you run a java web start application you must go to the website to download the program. After that you can run it locally without a browser. If you want updates to the program, however, you need to visit the website again. I still think this is superior to a web app. -Joe http://www.lovehorsepower.com/

Re:Return of the terminal

[misleb]

This was only months ago. And I believe they required the web site access for the authentication. The website was the main part of their business. You had to go there to buy and trade "runes" for your character. You'd get a unique web start item after you authenticated. If you tried to run an old webstart file, you wouldn't be able to authenticate to the game. So perhaps it was a problem with the way they choose to do authentication (single-singon with the website) and not so much web-start, but still, I don't really see the point of using the webstart at all. Why not just implement it like a normal app with a built in updater? I know Cocoa apps have libraries you can use to distribute and install updates from the developer. Similar to what Firefox does. What does webstart really do for the user?

-matthew

Re:Return of the terminal

[misleb]

Ok, so if a webstart program is really just a regular local app, what does the "web" have to do with it? How is it at all different from any other Java app?

-matthew

Re:Return of the terminal

[Anonymous Coward]

It's web distributed.

A web start application doesn't get installed like a traditional application. the executable jar files are stored on the server and cached locally, giving the best of both worlds.

Re:Return of the terminal

[misleb]

It's web distributed.

You mean like just about every other application I download and install?

web start application doesn't get installed like a traditional application. the executable jar files are stored on the server and cached locally, giving the best of both worlds.

And exactly how is it different than an OSX application checking for updates on startup (Adium, iTerm, Firefox, Textmate, for examples) installing, and then restarting? That is the best of both worlds if you ask me. I get a fast, native looking apps with automatic updates. What more can you ask for?

-matthew

Re:Return of the terminal

[josepho]

I certainly see your point. However, the first time an application is distributed isn't an update. A user just goes to website (most know how to do that!), and clicks a link. From then on you could do updates automatically from the application without ever visiting the site again. You also do not have to code up an installer program unique to every platform.
Check this:
http://www.javaworld.com/javaworld/jw-07-2001/jw-0 706-webstart.html?page=2
-Joe
http://www.lovehorsepower.com/

Re:Return of the terminal

[misleb]

I certainly see your point. However, the first time an application is distributed isn't an update. A user just goes to website (most know how to do that!), and clicks a link. From then on you could do updates automatically from the application without ever visiting the site again. You also do not have to code up an installer program unique to every platform.

As a user, I don't really care about other platforms. Apparently the advantages/differences are mainly for the developer and not the user. Sounds very typical of Java. That is most likely why Java in general never really made it big on the desktop. ;-)

-matthew

Re:Return of the terminal

[epine]

I went to a university in the early 1980s that prided itself on its Math and CS department (still does) and found myself using ... WIDJET terminal rooms, 3270 terminal rooms, and interpreted PASCAL on the Commodore Superpet.

Let me tell you what turned out to be the "killer application" on thin clients: the ability to have *multiple* windows open at the same time and *cut and paste* data from one to another.

Comparing the thin clients of yore with the modern thin client is like comparing an airline tray table with a war operations planning facility. Lest we forget ...

Re:Return of the terminal

[ClosedSource]

Again, you have me at a disadvantage, but at a minimum if X11 is performing different processing for local vs. network than it must be determing which behavior is appropriate and that takes CPU cycles that native rendering doesn't require. So I strongly suspect there is a performance hit and the issue is just how big it is.

Re:Return of the terminal

[PastaLover]

There is an impact of the network communication but it is negligible when compared to the cost of doing the actual graphical operations. Many of the problems where X is slow atm seem to be caused by architecting issues in the ways the drivers are set up and the way they use the video memory. This is where most of the effort is going, the impact of the network transparancy is max 2fps.

Re:Return of the terminal

[ClosedSource]

That's sounds more plausible than the "just as fast" claim. Of course network communications were much slower at the time X was created than they are today, which is part of the reason I believe that we had to go through a non-network-transparent phase to boostrap Internet clients economically. Whether X is really is the future of Windowing systems beyond Unix/BSD/Linux still remains to be seen.

Re:Return of the terminal

[howlingmadhowie]

yes, it would be better to use ssh or allow xhost. however, microsoft would never (could never?) implement stuff like that and open the standards or make it usable by the average joe so it just ain't going to happen. instead we're going to have heavily crippled slow applications running in a web browser which require the equivalent of big iron computing from 10 ten years ago. well hoorah.

really?

[um... Lucas]

Somehow, I'm having issue believing that number. 100,000? Maybe 100,000 companies have users that are using gmail accounts, but I just don't buy that 100,000 real businesses have switched over already, unless Jim-bob in his basement counts as a business...

Re:really?

[kestasjk]

Remember they offer a free trial until April 30th. I wonder if they're counting businesses that are using the free trial.

Re:really?

[bogaboga]

So how many companies *might* have switched according to you, your "majesty?" Why should we believe you anyway?

Re:really?

[geoffspear]

I seriously doubt any company trying this as a free trial has "completly replaced" MS products with Google Apps.

In fact, if their product manager is this delusional, I'm seriously reconsidering my optimism about these apps every being improved enough to completely replace MS Office. We can only hope he's replaced with someone good when he's inevitably institutionalized.

Re:really?

[um... Lucas]

You have no reason to believe me, I'm not spouting fact here, just gut reaction. I'm not a stock analyst, IT commentator, or anything else that my give weight to my reaction, I'm just someone that saw the story and said to myself "Really????"

Re:really?

[kimvette]

They're counting the four companies listed above, then counting each of the 99,996 Google fanboi users as companies. ;)

Re:really?

[Timesprout]

Any company prepared to trust the bulk of their communication and data to a third party with those terms of service is nuts anyway. Everybody seems to be overlooking the 'we can rip this service out from under you at anytime we feel like it' and the 'we can impose arbitrary restrictions on your use at anytime we choose'.

Re:really?

[stupendou]

I think it's 100,000 since Google has made this technology available. Which means way before yesterday.

Re:really?

[JacksBrokenCode]

by um... Lucas (13147) on Friday February 23, @06:57AM (#18122242)
Somehow, I'm having issue believing that number. 100,000? Maybe 100,000 companies have users that are using gmail accounts, but I just don't buy that 100,000 real businesses have switched over [to google apps] already, unless Jim-bob in his basement counts as a business...

Result: Modded -5, Troll

by bizarro um... Lucas (13147) on Friday February 23, @06:57AM (#18122242)
Somehow, I'm having issue believing that number. 100,000? Maybe 100,000 companies have users that are using internet explorer, but I just don't buy that 100,000 real businesses have switched over [to office] already, unless Jim-bob in his basement counts as a business...

Result: Modded +5, Insightful

Re:really?

[IflyRC]

They're probably counting unique domain names that hit the web site. Of course its being widely used - it was just released and people want to try it out.

Even if each user just hit it once, it can be spun into being widely used.

Re:really?

[cdrudge]

What, you mean the marketing guys inflate their numbers? Say it ain't so!

Re:really?

[superpulpsicle]

I really shouldn't be saying this in public, but did you know hotmail didn't backup their data properly for the first 5-8 years in business. How about TJX's stolen credit cards. Do you think your IT staff is smarter than google?

Re:really?

[bismark.a]

Anybody else notice something strange about the number 100,000 here? Like here

Re:really?

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes, but if you have ever had contracts with any large software company they can for all purposes yank their service out from under you also. For example last year our Oracle liscencing costs went up over 200%.

Re:really?

[guruevi]

Lol. Microsoft has been doing it and is still doing it for years. People don't stop using Microsoft products do they? Read the EULA on any product or service made by [big software company here]. Read the restrictions on Microsoft's 'open' XML format. As soon as they decide, they can pull the 'open' from under your arse and any software development you did using it, all of a sudden can't use the latest iteration of the 'open' "standard".

What you're pointing out is just Microsoft-funded FUD, not that I personally would trust my business to any online service including Google's, I rather keep things closer to my bed, but even Microsoft is going 'Live' with a lot of their software including Office.

Re:really?

[kripkenstein]

Everybody seems to be overlooking the 'we can rip this service out from under you at anytime we feel like it' and the 'we can impose arbitrary restrictions on your use at anytime we choose'.

Actually the same goes for people using MS Office. Microsoft can decide not to patch some flaw that essentially makes MS Office unusable for certain people (due to security reasons, for example). Microsoft can also raise the prices for updates to where it isn't cost-effective for many of their clients. They can 'push' updates that reduce functionality. In theory.

In practice, both Google and Microsoft won't do such things, because (1) 'ripping the service out from under clients' (as you well put it) just isn't good business, and (2) contracts. A contract with Google will ensure a certain service for some-odd years, just like a contract with Microsoft. No more, and no less.

However, you are 100% right about both of them - even if it is unlikely that these doomsday scenarios occur, they are possible. Entrusting your IT over to Google (by hosting it on their servers) or to Microsoft (by running their closed-source programs, and in addition being locked-in to them) is somewhat a 'leap of faith'. For those that value their personal autonomy, there are really only two options: in-house development, which is completely impractical for 99% of organizations, or using open-source software (as people reading this know already).

Yet, the Microsoft and Google solutions will, I predict, continue to draw the vast majority of businesses: Microsoft are already entrenched, and Google are so ridiculously cheap it seems a crime not to use their service.

Re:really?

[Timesprout]

Lol. Microsoft has been doing it and is still doing it for years. People don't stop using Microsoft products do the

I knew someone would come up with this. The difference is, and its a massive difference is that Google can deny you access to your data at any time they choose. With MS you still have physical access to your files, free viewers and converters, Open Office.org etc to access the information contained within so while incovenienced you can still carry on your business. Google shutting out your account leaves you with nothing.

Re:really?

[awol]

Despite the terms of service. It would be a very interesting test case if they should try to rip it out from under you without giving you access to your data. There is a general presumption of a duty of care. What is really interesting is that in a commercial context the law really likes there to be a payment to "establish" the relationship from which the duty arises (I am pretty sure that the "neighbour" principle is a bridge too far) so for those that are not "premium" perhaps ultimately, bad luck. However as premium users I reckon you would have a pretty strong case to make that Google owes you _at least_ your data in a meaningful format.

Re:really?

[HAKdragon]

Nothing is stopping you from saving your files locally when using Google Docs. It works more or less like it would on any desktop application. File > Save as . However, I'll grand that, if you can't actually access Google Docs, then you're screwed unless you have a program capable of working with those files and then what's the point of Google Docs?

Re:really?

[psydeshow]

It takes a big PR budget to get numbers this good.

Expect to see stories about Google Apps *everywhere* for the next few weeks, while they work on making the made-up numbers and scenarios in this article a reality.

Re:really?

[tsalaroth]

Especially considering I've been a part of the beta for this suite for over a year, now. This was the public release from Beta, nay-sayers, not the first time it's ever been seen. Just because /. did not cover it does not mean that it did not happen.

Re:really?

[mrsbrisby]

The difference is, and its a massive difference is that Google can deny you access to your data at any time they choose. With MS you still have physical access to your files.

The big problem with your argument is that Google has a great track record of trying to make it easy for me to work with the data that they save for me: They give me pop3 and smtp access to my mailbox, and let me mirror my docs with relative ease.

Microsoft on the other hand has used every opportunity they can to make using my data as difficult and financially burdensome as possible.

Those free converters work so long as Microsoft doesn't change their formats and only work well enough "most of the time"- not well enough that anyone sane can rely on them.

Re:really?

[Zebra_X]

Not to mention, "We can mine your corporate/personal data for whatever purpose we choose." Or "We can supply the government with any information we have because we have to."

I don't think the "hundreds of thousands" means what the product manager thinks it does either.

In general I'm skeptical of all of this. I for one enjoy that I own my data, hardware and software (not that i really "own" my software).

Re:really?

[idiotwithastick]

Actually the same goes for people using MS Office. Microsoft can decide not to patch some flaw that essentially makes MS Office unusable for certain people (due to security reasons, for example). Microsoft can also raise the prices for updates to where it isn't cost-effective for many of their clients. They can 'push' updates that reduce functionality. In theory. I got the idea that even if you don't upgrade MS Office at least you still have your files on your hard drive? Which means that you could look up the document specification and theoretically still access the data in your files without using Office at all... whereas the idea is that Google can shut you out from your data to the point that the only way you can access it is if you hack into Google servers.

Re:really?

[Anonymous Coward]

Until relatively recently, no one even knew how to read an NTFS volume let alone write to it. Now Vista was supposed to showcase Microsoft's next-gen filesystem. Instead I believe they tweaked NTFS again in a way that makes it incompatible with most of today's viewers. But it should not be long until that is reversed engineered, as the changes are not too big. On the other hand, Microsoft is going to release its next-gen filesystem with the OS to succeed Windows Vista. At that time, the OS will become even more of a rental than it is right now (look at your license agreement). Want access to your data after you decided you do not want to pays Microsoft's monthly (or yearly) fee? Tough luck without paying a fee to give you permission to use Microsoft's intellectual property contained in its undocumented (publicly) filesystem. I think I would rather go with Google on this one.

As I understand it, Google will use open standards to store your files and allow its customers to download the full archive accumulated during a subscription period to their own personal computers and servers for backup purposes that don't rely on Google's continued business and/or uptime. At least that is what I expect.

Maybe they both suck and we should go open source instead.

Re:really?

[Anonymous Coward]

I got the idea that even if you don't upgrade MS Office at least you still have your files on your hard drive? Which means that you could look up the document specification and theoretically still access the data in your files without using Office at all...

I've highlighted the flaw in your plan. There is no specification, only an implementation, and that implementation is Office. Everything else attempts to achieve compatibility by reverse engineering. Google docs has the advantage that it can save in OpenOffice format, which is a documented standard.

Re:really?

[pipingguy]

(due to security reasons, for example)

I used to work for an engineering company that had every document/drawing stamped "confidential" as SOP. One day I noticed that the receptionist was paging through such "confidential" paper documents (I think she was writing down drawing numbers or something as busywork) and she mentioned that it was good that it was her that was doing this because she didn't understand anything.

My point is that 99% of all digital information transmitted is not sensitive but some people like to pretend it is (you figure out the reasons). The really key stuff is typically not sent by methods that can be easily intercepted.

Re:really?

[contactdick]

I disagree. Companies already trust their money to other companies - Banks, why should data be so different. Why would a company such as Google, who depends upon its reputation for providing and securing data behave like that. Thats just like saying a Bank will suddenly withhold your money, or start deciding who you can transact with.

B$

[teknopurge]

I call bullshit on the 100,000 number. This has mediaHypeFUD written all over it.

GE, a government contractor, will not allow a 3rd-party to have any sort of access to project documentation. Neither will GM, BoA, or the rest of the fortune 1000.

Google apps has its place, but it is not in any "enterprise" i've ever worked in.

Re:B$

[errxn]

How can this be FUD? I mean, we're talking about moving *away* from Microsoft here, so there's no way this can be FUD! Not on /.!

Re:B$

[bogaboga]

Google apps has its place, but it is not in any "enterprise" i've ever worked in.

My 33 man company uses those very Google services...so far, so good. I believe we are not alone.

Re:B$

[tomstdenis]

Shut up.

Not all /.'ers are foaming at the mouth anti-msft zealots. I may hate MSFT, but that doesn't mean I automatically love any competitor. And I suspect many other /.'ers feel the same. For someone with such a low UID, you think you'd get it more.

I realize you're trying to be funny, but it's just really annoying to hear the same bullshit over and over again. Yes, MSFT is pure evil. No, not everyone else is automatically gold.

Tom

Re:B$

[644bd346996]

He called B$, not FUD. Just because it is a bald-faced lie doesn't mean it is FUD.

Re:B$

[Like2Byte]

I think the GP is suggesting that companies that have sensitive data (whether to the companies bottom line or some secret formula) are not quickly going to float their data over the internet and hope that some other entity is going to treat that data as sensitive as in-house employees would. Data needs to be controlled AND managed. Some companies are going to be more restrictive with their data warehousing than others.

I seriously doubt pharmacological, banking, automotive, airline-manufacturing (whether civilian or defense) companies are going to put any data into a server that they do not directly have control over.

The reasons why are as varied as the industry, too. Criminal hacking aside, what if some power or cable company cuts the hard line, through accident or whatever, and the company can't retrieve their data? I'm sure you'd know right away about a more than a few IT job opportunities right away.

Re:B$

[NDPTAL85]

Your anger stems from your shame that you aren't as Anti-MS as you deep down inside feel and know you should be.

Only you can absolve yourself of your own sins. Embrace the Google.

Re:B$

[SquareVoid]

How is all this different from say Salesforce CRM services? As for GE using this, if they aren't I am sure that will surface pretty soon. I can unserstand why you wouldnt want your company data at some 3rd party, but those concerns can easily be rectified with contracts.

Re:B$

[thrillseeker]

I think the GP is suggesting that companies that have sensitive data (whether to the companies bottom line or some secret formula) are not quickly going to float their data over the internet

The amount of "sensitive data" that goes out over unencrypted email would amaze most of us.

Re:B$

[falcon5768]

agreed, for all the hyping of "data protection" I can promise you 80% of all the sensitive data out there, ends up going out unencripted.

Re:B$

[Richard Steiner]

Your sarcasm detector appears to be faulty.

Please report to Vaporization Chamber 7 on level 15A immediately for medical assistance.

The computer is your friend!

Re:B$

[tomstdenis]

My reply claims I knew it was a joke. My complaint was that it was a BAD joke.

Your reading apparatus is broken, go DIACF. Stupid low UID luddites...

Tom

Re:B$

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm not sure if you even read the summary here: companies are using it to "augment, not replace"
It's obvious that a defense company or financial company is not going to jump on this right away and will likely never use an online based application for proprietary documentation, but saying that they use it as supporting software is possible.

Re:B$

[teknopurge]

but those concerns can easily be rectified with contracts. You must be new to business.

Contracts don't mean shit. Seriously. You wipe your behind with the same type of paper.

All a contract does is allow the possibility of action, it in no way can guarantee any outcome. That being said, what company would allow any modicum of risk to sensitive data, or even org charts?

Re:B$

[ballwall]

While I agree there's a 'theoretical' issue there, what I think most companies will realize is they aren't going to get a more competent IT staff than the people running Google's service. Additionally, I imagine a lot of people are going to be using pop3 to download their gmail, in which case you'd have a local copy anyway.

Re:B$

[gregleimbeck]

agreed, for all the hyping of "data protection" I can promise you 80% of all the sensitive data out there, ends up going out unencripted. And without using spellcheck.

Re:B$

[PitaBred]

That's more like 95%

Re:B$

[DanCo]

It's not misspelled, he's just using a very weak encryption scheme. And, by the way, you're in violation of the DMCA for decrypting it. As am I now. Crap!

Re:B$

[ShinmaWa]

I think you being a mite unfair. There's a LOT more business in this world than General Motors and Bank of America.

Fortune 1000 companties with armies of IT folks are not the focus for GAFYD. Google is targetting Bob's Discount Auto Service, West Poughdunk Flowers, and the millions of other Ma'n'Pa small and medium businesses out there who can't afford massive IT expendatures, but still want the some of the same benefits that they provide. A flower shop isn't going to have mounds of confidential, ITAR-controlled information that have to be kept under tight security wraps.

YOU might have only worked in large enterprises, but those are the vast minority of businesses in the world. I'm sure that a LOT of these organizations have jumped on the Google offering. Hell, even the free version is pretty nice.

Re:B$

[Anonymous Coward]

Just catching up on /. after the weekend, so this is late. But you are right to call bullshit. I know for a fact that they are not "live" within many of these companies. They are being used by R&D departments to do feasibility studies.

Reminds me of the time I heard the CTO of a Fortune 10 company say, "I want to flirt with Open Source enough to make Microsoft nervous."

Skeptical

[DogDude]

Call me skeptical, but this sounds like 100% bullshit. Hundreds of thousands of companies have, in the past day and a half, switched their entire office infrastructure to a web-based one? Not likely.

Re:Skeptical

[kv9]

Hundreds of thousands of companies have, in the past day and a half, switched their entire office infrastructure

in related news: Chairs Seen Flying in Redmond

Re:Skeptical

[fangorious]

This service has been available (in beta, for free) for probably a year now, so [Google] aren't claiming that 100, 000 companies switched in a day.

bullshit or not

[thesupermikey]

Google Apps seems like a really great idea for Universities. We spend SO much money on MS Office and related products. Graduate Students in my department had to share computers (6 to a PC) until this summer. Now we have crippled dell's which can barely run powerpoint, or do any significant work in Photoshop.

Re:bullshit or not

[tomstdenis]

Dear school guy,

Use Openoffice. It's free. Run it on top of GNU/Linux. It's also free.

Sincerely,
Get a fucking clue.

Re:bullshit or not

[Ulysses_S_Grant]

The reason Universities spend SO much money on MS Office and related products is because MS Office programs are used in the overhwelming majority of businesses. Knowing how to use MS Office is, whether you like it or not, important for anyone looking to get a job in any sort of office environment.

Re:bullshit or not

[SuperBanana]

Google Apps seems like a really great idea for Universities. We spend SO much money on MS Office and related products.

Umm...why didn't you install OpenOffice?

Re:bullshit or not

[the_womble]

That matters you are running a vocational training college for clerical staff.

If you are running a university it should not. If people feel they need to "know" MS Office, then they can spend a day or to getting to know it in their own time.

Most people only have to know how to use a word processor to write a letter and basic use of a spreadsheet - it is not as if they need to spend weeks learning VBA to be able to do what employers expect.

Re:bullshit or not

[Anonymous Coward]

If you remove the circusware that Dell supplies all their computers with, I am sure your computers would handle Powerpoint AND Photoshop at the SAME TIME!11!!

Re:bullshit or not

[644bd346996]

Obviously, from you blog, you are not in a very technical department. I have found that in math and computer science dapartments, unix and linux workstations typically outnumber grad students 2 to 1.

I have to wonder how much in the way of Office your department really needs. Google Apps should be great for your department and probably the general sutdent body. However, I find it disturbing that grad students need to use powerpoint and photoshop regularly. When writing a thesis, all you really need is a web browser and LaTeX. And if the students actually need to do number crunching or statistics, you should be able to get the money out of the department, especially if you stop buying powerpoint and photoshop.

Re:bullshit or not

[99BottlesOfBeerInMyF]

Dear school guy, Use Openoffice. It's free. Run it on top of GNU/Linux. It's also free.

Dear Clueless,

How much does it cost for direct telephone support for all those OpenOffice users? How much does it cost to run e-mail servers for them? How much does it cost for disk space and maintaining redundant backups of the disk? How much does it cost to administer the calendar, e-mail, IM, file, and backup servers? How many students are willing to wipe their macs in order to install Linux and get a reasonable version of OpenOffice? Who will be providing support for the installation of OpenOffice on all those home machines as well as providing a mechanism for transporting the user's files between the two systems and keeping them synched?

Get a fucking clue.

Aside from learning some basic courtesy, make you should learn to think through what all is being provided by Google here and how hard it would actually be to replicate all that functionality in a university setting. There are a lot of cases where OpenOffice is a much, much better solution than Google Docs. At our business, for example, we would not let our documents and communication all run, unencrypted to a third party. We would not relinquish so much control of the functions handled by our servers. For the education sector, however, Google seems to be offering a lot of real advantages over OpenOffice at this time.

Re:bullshit or not

[tomstdenis]

You're in school for christ sake, how about have a class or two about the libre software tools in the 100 level?

The rest of your comment is nonsense. There are plenty of schools that have made the move to libre software already. And they haven't collapsed in upon themselves as you are alluding. As for the mac users, isn't there a port of OpenOffice to that already?

Anyways, bullshit whining. There are libre software choices, you just have to pull your head out of your arse and look around.

There are two types of people, those who bitch that libre software is teh bad, and those who just go out and use it to be productive anyways despite the "current cool factor of raggin on it.'

Tom

Re:bullshit or not

[neverpsyked]

"Libre Software"? What is this, the French Computing Revolution?

Re:bullshit or not

[Stamen]

"As for the mac users, isn't there a port of OpenOffice to that already?"

Yes, NeoOffice. It works well.

Re:bullshit or not

[tomstdenis]

English doesn't have a unique word for libre (e.g. free as in freedom). So I use libre instead.

People should realize there is more to "free software" than not having to pay money to use it.

Tom

Re:bullshit or not

[99BottlesOfBeerInMyF]

The reason Universities spend SO much money on MS Office and related products is because MS Office programs are used in the overhwelming[sic] majority of businesses.

So you're telling me that five years after a user graduates their skills using MS Office products will be more valuable and translate better to whatever the most popular office tool of the day is than using Google Docs? How do you know that by the time they graduate Google Docs won't be the standard? When I was in school the word processor of choice was WordPerfect, does that hinder my ability to use MS Word somehow? For the most part a word processor is a word processor. A spreadsheet is a spreadsheet. If your university is training you to use any specific tool, instead of teaching you general concepts and skills that you can apply across many different tools, then you should probably drop out now and find a better school.

The reason some universities use MS Office products is because MS gives them huge discounts and it minimizes the support costs as it is what most users have on their home machines. There has been a noticable move towards OpenOffice in recent years because it further reduces costs and the users can have the exact same (up to date) version on their home machine further reducing support issues. This is hampered by the difficulty of migrating formats and making changes in general, and by OpenOffice's lackluster Mac support, which is more important in university settings.

Google docs is offering a way to not only almost the functionality MS Office supplies, but also to handle the support for almost all of it as well as server administration costs and duplicating the benefit of having the same product at home and in school while also eliminating the transport problem. If your university is not evaluating at Google Docs as a potential solution, then you are the on likely to be left behind as technology moves on. MS is doing their best to try to move MS Office to an internet service model as well, so you'd better get used to it.

Re:bullshit or not

[Mistah Blue]

And you should realize:

Universities exist to teach their students - and this includes how to use the tools they will use in the real world

Corporations use MS Office in general. OpenOffice is not in great use across the global range of companies, with some exceptions.

Using free software, therefore, may or may not be the best solution in a University setting.

Re:bullshit or not

[99BottlesOfBeerInMyF]

You're in school for christ sake, how about have a class or two about the libre software tools in the 100 level?

Umm, how does this help mitgate any of the points I made?

The rest of your comment is nonsense. There are plenty of schools that have made the move to libre software already. And they haven't collapsed in upon themselves as you are alluding.

I never said they would collapse, I simply pointed out some of the many reasons why Google Docs is more suited to the academic setting than OpenOffice. Calling someone an idiot because they did not move to OpenOffice instead is what is nonsense.

As for the mac users, isn't there a port of OpenOffice to that already?

Sure there is. It is just immensely slow. It is actually faster for me to run the Linux native version in Kubuntu, in a VM running on top of OS X, than it is for me to run the last version of NeoOffice I tested. The developers are making progress and I applaud their effort, but in the end Google docs opens instantly and is responsive, while NeoOffice takes a minute or more to load and can't even keep up with my typing much of the time on a machine significantly faster than what the average user will have.

Anyways, bullshit whining. There are libre software choices, you just have to pull your head out of your arse and look around.

You're the one who has to realize that being free and open is a feature, and not a particularly important one to many people. You just assume it is the best choice for someone because it is open, but that is completely a false assumption. Sometime a closed source tool is a better choice for me and for most people in general.

There are two types of people...

...those who assert false dichotomies in an attempt to oversimplify the world so they don't have to think, and those who objectively view every choice without blinders on. You'll find my name on IETF drafts, and I've contributed to many open source projects. That does not mean it is always the best solution to a given problem.

Re:bullshit or not

[Silverstrike]

OpenOffice is not in great use across the global range of companies

True, but neither are Macs, and I doubt you'd knock a college student for using one of those. However, this example is even more poignant, OpenOffice clones the UI of MS Office fairly closely. Therefore, skills learned in OO will transport nicely to MS Office.

Using free software, therefore, may or may not be the best solution in a University setting.

Well then, glad that's settled. A binary decision is decidedly either true or false. Your argument must've truly was astounding, you haven't even persuaded yourself to your line of thinking (is that even possible?).

Re:bullshit or not

[papasui]

English also doesn't have an unique word for bumblefuck (e.g. you are fucking dumb). So I use bubmlefuck instead.

Re:bullshit or not

[Anonymous Coward]

Universities exist to teach their students - and this includes how to use the tools they will use in the real world

No way. Things change far too often for that to even be logical, even in trade schools.
The main focus of schools is teaching concepts and baseline theory. You then use that general knowledge of how it works and operates and apply it to your existing situation. In the process of teaching the "basics", a very specific example or design is used as the focus to take the training to the practical level for an overall well rounded knowledge and to show applications that your baseline knowledge can be applied to something real.

I was involved in Navy nuclear power. We were taught from the bottom up on S3G reactor cores with a S5W supporting plant. Well, those plants have been gone for years but the plant knowledge you learned is easily transferred to completely different designs. Neutrons interact with other materials a certain way under certain conditions. Those conditions are different in other plant designs and I know how the neutrons will react in that plant as well. I was NOT taught how neutrons act in a very specific plant under very specific conditions, I was taught how neutrons react under many conditions. If you are not capable of learning a new plant design, you can blame your school for not teaching you the basics or blame yourself for not being able to transfer your knowledge to something in use today.

Re:bullshit or not

[Maxwell]

You're in school for christ sake, how about have a class or two about the libre software tools in the 100 level?

Yeah, beacuse everyone in school is taking comp sci or engineering.

Or maybe 90% of the are NOT taking comp sci, engineering and 50%+ don't even take a MATH CLASS (for christs sake) at the 100 level. Universities are a good cross section of the general population not a bunch of geeks running around waving penguins at each other.

You did not answer *any* of the OP questions, you just assumed that every single student should learn/master the archaic world of free linux software. Right, that will work great- just like it works outside of the school environment!

Someone needs to get their head out of their arse: you.

JON

Re:bullshit or not

[dave562]

Corporations use MS Office in general. OpenOffice is not in great use across the global range of companies, with some exceptions.

Agreed.

Using free software, therefore, may or may not be the best solution in a University setting.

On the other hand, most students only really need to use the computer to RESEARCH, type up papers and email/communicate. Unless you are a business or comp sci major, whether or not you know how to use Office isn't going to be a huge detriment to your resume.

I think that the big argument for needing to know Office is Excel and the formula language that Microsoft uses. For the most part a word processor is a word processor. I've used WordPerfect 5.1, AmiPro and Word. For my uses, they are functionally equal. They let me type, format and most importantly, SPELLCHECK. =)

The other argument for using Office is the sheer number of third party applications that leverage it. For example, a few of my previous clients were accounting offices. A company named Thomson has a whole slew of forms (Word templates and [mainly] Excel spreadsheets) that more or less automate compliance with the various accounting regulations that change on a REGULAR basis. If you want the ease offered by those forms (and trust me, it's MUCH easier to use the forms than to stay on top of all of the regulatory changes and manually update in house forms), then you need to be using MS Office.

How does Google apps deal with a situation like that where third parties want to leverage their applications?

And on another tangent... Given the scattered "open" software application space (OpenOffice, Star Office, KOffice, etc.), will companies like Thomson ever find it in their best interests to bother to port their product? Or to put it another way, will they ever lose enough sales because their product only works on Office (and something like 95%+ of the companies who they'd target their product to)? And if they do port it, which package do they port it to?

Re:bullshit or not

[Bearhouse]

So, you are suggesting that somehow it's OK for people in the education sector to have "documents and communication all run, unencrypted to a third party"?

Re:bullshit or not

[Khuffie]

"99BottlesOfBeerInMyF" is in IETF drafts? No wonder you guys never get any work done!!!

please note: I've no idea what IETF is and can't be bothered looking. Just wanted to make a funny. Please don't hurt me. :(

Re:bullshit or not

[joshetc]

You have to be an idiot to not be able to figure out how to do basic things in MS Word / Excel anyway. Anyone with ANY computer experience could easily figure out how do to the things required by low-skill jobs.

Re:bullshit or not

[Jon Luckey]

English doesn't have a unique word for libre (e.g. free as in freedom). So I use libre instead

unencumbered.

But 'unencumbered software movement' sounds more like a description of comfortable underwear than a politcal philosophy regarding computer programs.

Re:bullshit or not

[99BottlesOfBeerInMyF]

So, you are suggesting that somehow it's OK for people in the education sector to have "documents and communication all run, unencrypted to a third party"?

In most cases, yes. I don't see that Google is any less trustworthy than any of the third party companies IT is outsourced to now. No one really wants to steal your undergraduate term papers, and in many cases they are already both published and submitted to third parties for archival in anti-plagiarism services. When you look to k-12 education this becomes even less of an issue, in my opinion.

Re:bullshit or not

[Anonymous Coward]

I'll bet it is a whole LOT LESS INEXPENSIVE to do all of the above on linux systems than using faulty, corrupt, etc. M$ junk. In fact, I know this, having run a linux lab and using linux exclusively for years, while all of my colleagues, neighbours, etc., continue to spend a fortune on M$ reliant junk.

Re:bullshit or not

[icensnow]

We (at a university) pay less than $50/seat (w/o media) for MS Office licenses. You probably have no idea what's being spent on the MS licences on your PCs, but it's probably far less than you think it is. We (in a university, not in a CS department) have no ideological OSS paradigm that says we need to teach our students OpenOffice, and we have a job-placement mandate that says they need to leave here with Word/Excel/PP as basic life skills, more on par with hygeine and proper attire than as real "job skills". As for the rest of it, we spend every nickel we can get on hardware and software that are specialized to the core area we teach, and that stuff is state-of-the-art. What we put in grad student offices is there via trickle down. That's a pretty common approach. I don't expect universities to be the early adapters of the Google Apps.

Re:bullshit or not

[drsquare]

If you need 'support' for a word processor, you shouldn't be at university.

Re:bullshit or not

[99BottlesOfBeerInMyF]

If you need 'support' for a word processor, you shouldn't be at university.

Really, because way back when I was having problems with automatically pulling data in WordPerfect from Matlab, Using SunOS. I e-mailed support and they helped me script around the bugs in their interface. Should I have dropped out at that point to satisfy your weird view of the world?

Re:bullshit or not

[Adambomb]

I actually expect this to be Googles next move, once proof of concept is over. Offer subsidized educational rates for universities, universities do backflips, and whole generations of new professionals start out work with "Hey how come we dont use what we've been using these past years!" pressures being applied to IT departments.

Nothing innovative there for google (*cough*microsoft*cough*), but its still a solid strategy.

O RLY?

[beavis88]

Production workers and retail employees for instance. 48% of all employees actually don't even have an email address. That's because the cost of hardware, software and maintenance has made it prohibitively expensive to provide email to employees.

Or maybe, just maybe, 48% of all employees don't need email to get their jobs done. I know, it sounds heretical, but let's be honest, does K-Fed really need email to operate that McDonald's cash register? Nah, I didn't think so either.

yu0 fail it?

[Anonymous Coward]

lis7 of other ballots. Yolu could triumphs would soon

Very skeptical about these numbers

[140Mandak262Jamuna]

100,000 user ids have been sold? Or 100,000 companies each with multiple user ids sold? I am guessing it is the former. These are the low hanging fruits folks. Microsoft has actively pushed bulk and unlimited licensing to most of its big customers. If their company already has unlimited number of MSOffice licenses, you need to provide a pretty powerful reason for them to start paying 50$ per user per year. Right now I dont see the compelling business reason to do so.

Re:Very skeptical about these numbers

[Anonymous Coward]

Unlimited licenses? Are you kidding? Microsoft charges in excess of $50 for a single site-license copy of its Office and Windows software (each one separately, not both). The Exchange Email server licensing requires a per-seat license fee to be paid on a monthly basis to Microsoft based on the amount of server space allocated for that particular email account. One computer for one year with Office and Windows and Microsoft's Exchange email costs in excess of $200 just on licensing fees alone. Google is seriously undercutting Microsoft's market here. And with good reason - Microsoft has ben ripping off its customers for far too long.

Re:Very skeptical about these numbers

[140Mandak262Jamuna]

I talked to our sys admin. Exchange server is licensed on a per user basis. Office is available for unlimited copies. So looks like Google is exactly targeting the right segment. Cherry picking. Thanks for the correction.

Re:Very skeptical about these numbers

[teknopurge]

I talked to our sys admin. Exchange server is licensed on a per user basis. Office is available for unlimited copies. So looks like Google is exactly targeting the right segment. Cherry picking. Thanks for the correction. Talk to him again - we are a MS partner and SPLA licensee.

-Outlook comes with an Exchange CAL.
-Office comes with Outlook.
-A list needs three items.

The caffeine powering today's sarcasm has been used up so I will spare you the comedic jab.

Re:Very skeptical about these numbers

[serber]

-Outlook comes with an Exchange CAL.

Actually, you have that the wrong way around. Plus that's no longer true anyway, as Exchange 2007 CALs no longer include an Outlook CAL.

Retail Employees with Email?

[Paulrothrock]

Why would you want your retail employees to have email? Is it really necessary for the cashier at Wal*Mart to have their own email address when they're probably only going to work there for a few months?

Re:Retail Employees with Email?

[Chris whatever]

Not only that

". 48% of all employees actually don't even have an email address. That's because the cost of hardware, software and maintenance has made it prohibitively expensive to provide email to employees.'"

how do they think that those employee that dont have a machine will get their e-mails anyways, with a calculator? that statement is completely dumb.

Anyway you see it people who dont have a computer, dont have an e-nail adress final so it will not make any difference at all.

Re:Retail Employees with Email?

[Anonymous Coward]

Having worked in a bookstore with email, I can tell you it's very helpful. When working 9 to 5, everyone is at the office together and you can just go talk to them. In a retail environment, everyone has very different schedules and communication can be difficult. Sometimes you won't see anyone for weeks. Email is a nice tool that combines the ability to send store and company wide messages along with private ones.
 
Can they do their job without it? Of course, but it makes the job easier for retail employees just like it does for *insert whatever job you thing deserves email*

Re:Retail Employees with Email?

[LWATCDR]

Not all retail workers are short time employees. At my local Publix I see the some of the same people year after year. Then again they offer benefits and tend to treat the employees pretty well from what I hear.
Email is useful even for a casher. They check it from home and get their schedule, information on company events, and so on.
They my not use it at the store but they may still use it.

Re:Retail Employees with Email?

[Paulrothrock]

But why then do they need a corporate email address? Why not a company website with that information? That would be significantly less work to host than an email address.

Re:Retail Employees with Email?

[Hadlock]

At my location (not a Publix) the schedule gets emailed out to those who volunteer their email address. I mean, they already type up the schedule in excel on the computer, it's only about 5 more mouse clicks to email it to the "employee schedule" mailing list. The neophytes can still pick up a paper copy, but the instances of "oh I didn't realize I had a shift today" dropped off considerably when people can check their email the night before and double check when their shift is.

Re:Retail Employees with Email?

[Ash-Fox]

But why then do they need a corporate email address? Why not a company website with that information? That would be significantly less work to host than an email address.

But before you could do that, you'd need to develop the website.

Re:Retail Employees with Email?

[LWATCDR]

They may not need a company email address but then they don't a uniform to to their job.
Also a company email address is less likely to be full of spam and other such silliness if done correctly.
Think if it as being part of the company. Some companies do value their employees.

Security breach coming to a company near you!

[Anonymous Coward]

Can't wait to see what happens when the 1st security breach happens and companies that THOUGHT they were storing their documents online safely, actually find their documents floating across the internet. Will kind of put a damper on this whole online storage thing. Think hackers aren't gonna sink their teeth into this????

Bottom line, real companies don't want their confidential documents floating around willy-nilly in the "cloud". And to have 2 systems (one desktop based for confidential, and "cloud" based for non-confidential) is just too much hastle to have to remember and maintain.

Re:Security breach coming to a company near you!

[Ash-Fox]

Will kind of put a damper on this whole online storage thing.

Doubt it.

Bottom line, real companies don't want their confidential documents floating around willy-nilly in the "cloud". And to have 2 systems (one desktop based for confidential, and "cloud" based for non-confidential) is just too much hastle to have to remember and maintain.

From what I've seen, corporations have bigger issues with this, and they are the ones that can afford hosting everything internally. Smaller companies can't really afford to host things internally and have less issues with confidential information getting leaked somewhere, even though many operate out of free webmail addresses etc.

Data under Google's care - Guaranteed?

[Anonymous Coward]

My one primary concern about data services like this that rely on another company storing your businesses data and communications off-site under their control is what recourse does one have for loss of data? Is Google guaranteeing their storage? If so, how is the guarantee backed up (so to speak)?

Re:Data under Google's care - Guaranteed?

[cyberianpan]

Why do you trust say your IT department not to lose data ? In fact if Google loses your data they risk losing tens of thousands of customers so they're going to try harder. Email, collaboration tools etc are at this point commodity software: pretty obvious what they do , pretty low down the food chain on value add. They are perfect for outsourcing.

Re:Data under Google's care - Guaranteed?

[mounthood]

What do you think internal IT department do with those backup tapes? The send them off and...

rely on another company storing your businesses data and communications off-site under their control

Re:Data under Google's care - Guaranteed?

[Anonymous Coward]

Why do you trust say your IT department not to lose data ? In fact if Google loses your data they risk losing tens of thousands of customers so they're going to try harder.

I don't. But my IT department (which I am a part of) knows our jobs are predicated on guaranteeing patrons timely access to their data. We mess up, we are out of our entire job. Google messes up on us, they only lose our account out of thousands, millions, or soon enough hundreds of millions of accounts. And they get the earful over the telephone or via email, never in person.

Email, collaboration tools etc are at this point commodity software: pretty obvious what they do , pretty low down the food chain on value add. They are perfect for outsourcing.

I agree. However, that does not address my data loss concerns. The data loss protection we guarantee as an IT department needs to be extendable to whatever service we recommend our patrons. I would much prefer moving to Google and away from expensive Microsoft Exchange accounts. But what guarantee does Google offer that I can bank on? If I recommend Google and Google messes up, Google loses one account but I lose my job.

These are not minor things that can be swept aside with the wave of a hand. And this is not the same as their free service(s) where I should have no expectations my data is guaranteed (as I learned recently with a Hotmail account I neglected to check in Microsoft's arbitrarily-decided timeframe), although it would be nice if there were better protections for that too.

How is Google guaranteeing my data and communications when I entrust my data and communications to Google? This question needs to be answered.

that massive sucking sound?

[hxnwix]

It's all that money flowing back out from Microsoft's Orifice.

open source + web services vice

[alucinor]

MS is in a vice no doubt. Isn't it already now when Ballmer said that "MS would catch up to Google in six months?" heheh.

And they're stepping up the "veiled threats" against open source software.

Oh, I give it about 3 to 5 years before MS goes superSCOva.

Re:open source + web services vice

[140Mandak262Jamuna]

Microsoft is not going supernova. Not in 5 years not in 10 years.

Let us take for example the vendor lock and switching costs. You can get decent oil change for your car for 20$. 10$ if you really clip coupons and are willing to let Joe's QuickLube to do it. And most car dealers charge 30$ for the very same service. Still there are millions of car owners who would happily pay 30$ to the dealer willingly.

Now take a look at how difficult it is to use a competing product instead of Microsoft. The switching costs are high and there is very heavy vendor lock. In 5 years, the marketplace might become more level. Finally the corporations might start demanding true interoperability. MS might lose market share. From 90% share in Office and 80-85% share in browsers and 95% share in computers, it might go down. How low will it go, I cant guess. May be to 50%. May be to 33%. The profitability also might suffer. But after all is said and done, MS will still have decent market share and a decent profit making business. Look around, IBM is still around, isn't it? It was the IBM dinosaur around which nimble Microsoft ran circles around. 10 years from now there will be three dinosaurs, IBM, MSFT and GOOG. And there will be another nimble player.

Re:open source + web services vice

[alucinor]

Not supernova, superSCOva. They're gong to turn into a mega-SCO that will last for many many years I'm afraid. There are too many signs that they're not able to compete technologically anymore: if they clone Google's services, then they remove some of their own lock-in ability and undercut their $100 to $400 office licenses, canabilizing themselves. So litigation is going to be their play when they find that not every open source company is going to want to buy licenses from them because some nebulous unidentified MS IP might be somewhere in FLOSS. That's already very SCO-like.

IBM is still around because they make gobs of cash from an extremely diverse portfolio. MS: only Windows and Office generate enough revenue to matter to the company. I don't doubt MS will come through it much like Sun has come through their own implosion, but even IBM avoided a huge drop like Sun, Cray, Xerox, or AT&T did back at the end of their own heydays.

Wow!

[Fist! Of! Death!]

Does this come standard on Vista? Oh I hope so!

No real threat

[n1_111]

Google is the one that has catching up to do to Microsoft, and it never will.

You Linux freaks can foam at the mouth trying to convince anyone that Linux + open office will be widely adopted by corporates. People that actually work in corporates and support infrastructure, will never let that amateur junk in.

Re:No real threat

[bgfay]

I agree. It's just like IBM said about the PC, that it wouldn't make a lot of money, that it didn't matter what operating system they used, and if that little company wanted to license the OS instead of selling it outright, what's the big deal.

And if that isn't enough proof, it's like those audiophiles said about the LP record. It sounds SO MUCH better than compact discs and it's not like people will ever put music on their computers.

I also remember someone saying that the iron horse would never outrun the real horse...

Duh.

Re:No real threat

[shudde]

You Linux freaks can foam at the mouth trying to convince anyone that Linux + open office will be widely adopted by corporates. People that actually work in corporates and support infrastructure, will never let that amateur junk in.

Some of us linux freaks don't care whether corporates adopt it or not. I'm a little curious about the source of your hostility though.. what did oss do to get your panties in such a bunch?

Re:No real threat

[UtucXul]

You Linux freaks can foam at the mouth trying to convince anyone that Linux + open office will be widely adopted by corporates. People that actually work in corporates and support infrastructure, will never let that amateur junk in.

But they have no problem with the professional junk that Microsoft puts out, right?

I use LaTeX for pretty much all my document needs so I don't have a real vested interest in OpenOffice.org vs. MS Office, but it really isn't fair to call OO amateur. It did start life as a commerical product. And is the opposite of commercial really amateur? gcc is not a commercial compiler, but it certainly not amateur and has been used in lots of serious situations.

Re:No real threat

[n1_111]

Mark me as troll all you want, but I have been working in real corporations with real people for 7 years now. I know what real people want, and that is Windows OS with Office. This may change in 10 years as new generations step up to the work force, but today there is no place for Linux or Google in the enterprise for end users. The only thing worthy that Google had until this point is Google Earth and Desktop Search. New windows desktop search rocks the world and has a much nicer user experience, and give me http://maps.live.com/ anytime.

Re:No real threat

[Anonymous Coward]

the more interesting thing is that all the documents are stored on Google's servers, where it can be searched! Any ideas will become Google's ideas, they have the money and the smart people to make things work. And that whole "Don't do evil" is out the window. Don't be fooled by Google, they are as ruthless as Micro$oft.

Find something that works for you and your company, but don't ever trust someone else with your data - it is your's isn't it?

Re:No real threat

[Anonymous Coward]

Right, so all those thousands of corporations that do use Linux are imaginary corporations employing imaginary people?

Re:No real threat

[n1_111]

No hostility, just a reality check.

OSS is clunky, junky, unpatched, non-integrated smorgasbord of incompatible offerings.

I used to enjoy "the idea" of oss, but over the years, I realized that ideas and ideals is one thing, but if you want a powerful, easy to use, secure systems for average end user, Microsoft is the ONLY way to go and will be for a very long time.

Microsoft is the company that has best resources and well-paid talent. Microsoft is a leader in R&D (don't take my word for it, do your own research, check out ftp://ftp.research.microsoft.com/ for example) so on and so forth. I don't have time to waist convincing amateurs here of anything.

Re:No real threat

[Bearhouse]

OK, but are you sure that they really want Win + MS Office, or would they be happy with something that offered the same functionality and a familiar interface (no steep learning curve)? Sure they would. There's a lot of debate here about Linux etc. being too 'hard' for the non-geek user - from my direct experince, it's a valid point. However, this is less applicable in a 'big company' environment where most PCs are (or should be) pre-configured and then locked down. I use, and have installed for clients, both XP with Office and *nix with OO. Once you've got things setup OK, (takes similar time with both) there's little difference in training and support. People familiar with Office can move to OO quickly. Also, when the function is compelling enough, and the learning experience not too tough, non tech-professionals can adopt new functions & applications quickly. Do you think that all the people using MySpace, YouTube, Flickr etc. are all geeks? For a more 'serious' application, what about salesforce.com? Many of the posters here seem to want to dump this debate into the same old black/white right/wrong box. ONE of them is more insightful - this stuff is complementary, not a return to the old 'dumb terminal' days, just another possibility to be evaluated and used where appropriate.

Re:No real threat

[n1_111]

LaTeX ? Yes, very widely used, indeed (sarcasm)

I use SharePoint Portal Server 2003 and now MOSS 2007. SharePoint rocks!

Re:No real threat

[Anonymous Coward]

Wow, I didn't realize Steve Ballmer posted on Slashdot! *ducks flying chair*

Re:No real threat

[n1_111]

People are happy with best applications. Windows OS, Office specifically 2007 beauty are best of breed. Easy to implement, patch, and have incredibly sophisticated features (when you need them). When you thinking about OSS in enterprise, ultimately, you should be thinking about TCO (total cost of ownership).

Technologies are growing more and more complex these days, and no one but Microsoft makes them easy to use and learn FAST.So, if you are an IT worker, you can easily juggle many things at the same time. This is a key point.

Re:No real threat

[JonJ]

You might want to tell Peugot that, as theyre rolling out 20k _desktops_ with SUSE on, and you also might want to email the city of Munich, they are migrating to Debian. At least you should have a quick chat with these people: http://www.computerweekly.com/Articles/2007/02/21/ 221941/kingfisher-migrates-to-red-hat-linux.htm (I know you said end users, I just could not resist).

Re:No real threat

[bgfay]

Our entire school dropped Office for OpenOffice and haven't missed a beat. The students like that the program gets upgraded regularly. The staff likes that it works. The business folks like the price.

Right now we're switching most of the kids school work to Google Docs because it's just so much easier to have access to the files everywhere.

Here's the thing though: this works for us. The problem that I'm having with your comments is that you seem to know the ONE TRUE WAY that is right for all people. I'm typing on the last PC I'll ever buy. My next computers will be Macs. Why? I like them. They work. And the whole software issue is becoming moot with all the services online. So I'm saying, ease up there, Skippy. You've got your way, other people have their ways.

Re:No real threat

[n1_111]

You are correct, there is no ONE True way. Everyting has to be considered when making decisions.

I For example, I will not buy a mac anytime soon, they are toy computers. My opinion may change in the future, as I am always looking for a bettre thing.

Re:No real threat

[bgfay]

Cool. Thanks for taking the criticism the way it was intended. As for the Mac being a toy computer, that's part of the reason I want to get one. The other is that the keyboards on the MacBooks are so good for typing and that's most of what I do.

Re:No real threat

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't have time to waist convincing amateurs here of anything.

It doesn't seem that you had any time to waste on developing a third grade spelling equivalency either.

Re:No real threat

[n1_111]

Time will tell.
I have seen pleanty of "_insert country, company name here_ steping-away-from-linux" news right here on Slashdot.

You can roll out anything you want, it is a total-cost-of-ownership that will be deciding factor, long term.

Microsoft products cost money, because they are worth every penny.

Re:No real threat

[Anonymous Coward]

And if you were around in the early 1990's when Windows 3.1 was relesed, you'd be sticking with DOS, Geoworks, and CP/M.

I'll give you that large companies are inherently more conservative when it comes to swtiching, but at my Fortune 25 company, the number of Google Apps users have increased over the past 6 months from yours truly to about 15% as part of the pilot project. All with IT approval, which is important.

Don't let the world pass you by.

Re:No real threat

[JonJ]

You seem to believe that SUSE and RHEL are gratis, they aren't.

Re:No real threat

[n1_111]

Well, I am an early adopter, so I have been using Vista, Office 2007, MOSS 2007 for almost a year now..

Having seen the power, ease, flexibility, extensibility, integration of these products I am amazed, and I see a clear winners - Rightfully so. Microsoft spends billions on research and has best brains in the industry, all because they want end-users to have a better computing experience and in doing so, keep them long-term, happy customers.

Re:No real threat

[n1_111]

1 more thing. new Live Mail ROCKS!

I have been using gmail since the early days and it is great, but have you seen new Live Mail, built in spell-checker, and all. MMM mmm mmm good!

Re:No real threat

[Anonymous Coward]

Sorry to interrupt, Mr. Ballmer, but your wife is on line 1. Something about a chair and an iPod?

Re:No real threat

[doublefrost]

Powerful, easy to use, secure? The only thing Microsoft has for the average end user is "easy to use", at the cost of security I might add. You should take your own advice and do your own research from sources that aren't from microsoft.

Re:No real threat

[Compholio]

LaTeX ? Yes, very widely used, indeed (sarcasm)

Try submitting to a scientific journal without it, or try writing a textbook (you ever wonder why they all look the same?), and you'll get back a list of organizations that you can pay to TeX your document for you. Since LaTeX easily outputs to PostScript and PDF it's also very easy to hand off your document to people that don't understand TeX.

Not at P&G

[labrite]

I have a few contacts at P&G having worked there before, and a quick survey of them shows noone has even heard of P&G testing this. Companies like P&G and GE have their software go through fairly extensive testing before releasing it in the company. The amount of spreadsheets that would have to be converted would be impossible to fix and it would place the documents out of P&G hands, something they would never allow to happen.

Re:Not at P&G

[dave562]

The amount of spreadsheets that would have to be converted would be impossible to fix ...

This is exactly the point I was trying to allude to in an earlier post I made when I mentioned Excel's formula language. In any large enough organization, there is likely enough business intelligence coded into Excel spreadsheets by people who no longer work there that trying to convert all of it onto another platform would be ridiculous.

I've seen the argument that a spreadsheet is a spreadsheet, and if you're starting from scratch, I think that is true. But a Google spreadsheet is not the same as a 20 page, fully formulated, linked to external datasources (via ODBC, SQL on the backend anyone?) Excel monster. And speaking of which, what do you do if you're using Google apps and you want to link to external data in say, an SQL server? Excel has great built in wizards that will link to just about any data source imaginable. Is Google going to port all of my financial data over there for me so that I can "access it from anywhere?"

Re:Not at P&G

[hxnwix]

Perhaps that's because they aren't involved with the pilot?

Oh, and nobody said P&G would be dropping excel. Yes, there is a strong business case to be made for keeping excel. Clearly. Look, I'll make you an excel sheet with a pivot table illustrating the various synergistic advantages...

Re:Not at P&G

[pipingguy]

...20 page, fully formulated, linked to external datasources (via ODBC, SQL on the backend...

Yes, I'm trolling, but I think I have a valid point.

Y'know, back in the old days smart people used to deal with really complicated information effectively without all this stuff. In many ways the hyper acceleration of technology just begets more technology and more focus on the tools, not the task at hand.

If the true goal of computerization in the workplace was to create jobs (rather than increase efficiency) then I might agree more with it. See: paperless office.

For communications, it's brilliant but in certain fields of endeavour it has actually slowed-down formerly-efficient processes.

great

[camila17pl]

Google Apps seems like a really great idea

-----
Camila17
everything about me, and more at radio internetowe

Re:great

[Anonymous Coward]

Google Apps seems like a really great idea

The Internet seems like a really big place

It replaces POP3 accounts, not Microsoft Office

[dybdahl]

I'm employed in a company that switched to Google Apps for Domains, and it works great. But it replaces our old e-mail service.

The calendar part is getting better and better, especially the arrival of syncmycal has improved integration with MS Outlook, but it surely doesn't replace it, yet, because Google Calendar cannot sync with everything, yet.

We're looking forward to use docs and spreadsheets, but it's still just an add-on to our existing in-house software.

Re:It replaces POP3 accounts, not Microsoft Office

[ronocdh]

That's true, it definitely can't sync with everything yet, which is the biggest obstacle to its adoption. For anyone who's interested, though, I recently found a tool for iCal and GCal: http://blog.spanningsync.com/ Automatically backs up your calendars in case of corruption, but I have been syncing two ways, seamlessly, for weeks now. One step closer!

Re:It replaces POP3 accounts, not Microsoft Office

[vgaphil]

The calendar part is getting better and better, especially the arrival of syncmycal has improved integration with MS Outlook, but it surely doesn't replace it, yet, because Google Calendar cannot sync with everything, yet.

Yes it can -> http://www.companionlink.com/products/companionlin kforgoogle.html

For the small company

[BuR4N]

Will probably be a hit among smaller companies that can stand the fact that their data will be stored elsewhere, and possible never be deleted.

As I see that it would be hard for Enterprises, of any moderate size, to store any remotly sensitive data on googles disks. In their case it would mostly be used as a way to work together, and then one might ask if gotomeeting or any other internet meeting service + openoffice/office/staroffice is a better solution. I guess time will tell...

Re:For the small company

[pubjames]

As I see that it would be hard for Enterprises, of any moderate size, to store any remotly sensitive data on googles disks.

I don't see why this should be the case - large enterprises often trust their data to third parties. I think this is just a perception issue, people think of Google as being a consumer company, and so not have the level of service required by an Enterprise, but I don't see why that should be the case. I don't think you'd hear someone say "As I see that it would be hard for Enterprises, of any moderate size, to store any remotly sensitive data on IBMs disks."

Re:For the small company

[BlackSnake112]

Third party hardware that the company completely owns and has complete say over what happens to it is very different from storing your data in someone else's house and they can pull the plug on your data any time they want to. Or they turn around and say you want access to your data? It'll cost you $$$ per month. The fee may be fine for some companies but not for others. I am more worried about google indexing all the data. Who is to say that google will not use other companies data for their own uses. This could give google a massive library of information for it to use.

Content scanning?

[ertdredge]

The thing that really still stops me from wanting to adopt these is the fact that Google content-scans the files. Even if they say they're not doing anything other than indexing my own content for my own use, it gives me the heebie jeebies to think of my private content that far out of my control.

Re:Content scanning?

[JoelMartinez]

Oh give it up man, do you really think that your "private content" is that interesting? You are more than likely giving yourself far too much credit. And if your private content really is that interesting, then you're the type of person that has already invested in a very secure infrastructure, and would likely not have the time to be bitching about a new service that you don't have to use on an internet site.

Re:Content scanning?

[ertdredge]

Um. True, I don't have to use it. I don't have to drive a car to work, either, but that doesn't mean that I therefore shouldn't discuss the merits of whether I should drive a car to work. And, yes, I imagine that if I was, say, negotiating a business contract or buyout deal with Google as so many companies hope to, I think that Google might actually find my files reasonably interesting.

um.. dupe....

[user24]

http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=07/02/22/143025 6

Lies and damned statistics

[SuperBanana]

Google's online productivity suite (Google Apps) has already replaced Microsoft products at more than 100,000 small to medium enterprises.

Uh, replaced? I seriously doubt that 100,000 companies are now exclusively using Google Apps. I seriously doubt that 100,000 companies even deployed Google Apps company-wide. I'd be astounded if that statistic was anything more than someone looking at the weblogs for Google Apps, seeing 100,000 unique .com domains, and concluding they had 100,000 companies using their product. It's probably one or two people at each company, logging in from work to their gmail account, and working on their resume in Google Apps.

Check out this cheesy bit of spin:

Additionally, it's been deployed for serious work-related projects at two of the largest companies in the world.

That's a relief. The industry was worried it was being used for managing the office football pool.

Exchange yes, Office no

[Per Abrahamsen]

I am actively advocating Google Apps for Your Domain in my company as a replacement for our aging Groupwise mail and calendar system, rather than going for a far more expensive Exchange based solution.

However, I wouldn't dream of (or rather I would dream of it, but then daytime reality kicks in) suggesting Google Apps as a replacement for MS Office. Not at this point.

I could easily imagine that the numbers in the article refers to how many Google Apps for Your Domain clients they have (most of which are free), but almost all of those will be as a Exchange replcement, not Office.

Re:Exchange yes, Office no

[gravyface]

Good luck with that -- migrating from Groupwise to Exchange was fun enough, with lots of tools that make it "seamless" *cough*. Again, $wonderWebAppName completely fails to understand the real issues with new technology adoption in the Real World(tm): data migration.

Re:Exchange yes, Office no

[Coryoth]

However, I wouldn't dream of (or rather I would dream of it, but then daytime reality kicks in) suggesting Google Apps as a replacement for MS Office. Not at this point.

That really depends on your needs. I know of some small offices that have relatively light office application needs and would be just fine replacing MS Office with Google Apps. For any major company it is clearly a no go because Google Apps just doesn't have all the required functionality. Indeed most of MS Office's market won't be able to make the switch. MS Office has a very big market though, and a lot of users simply don't need all the functionality it offers. Those that can get by with Google Apps instead may be a very small percentage of the MS Office market, but they may still be reasonably large numbers in absolute terms.

Re:Exchange yes, Office no

[Per Abrahamsen]

The problem isn't as much the feature set, as the fact that MS Office files are the de-facto standard for document exchange. Even if you don't need a specific feature yourself, are you sure some customer or partner won't use something beyond the capability of Google's import filters?

Re:Exchange yes, Office no

[Coryoth]

Even if you don't need a specific feature yourself, are you sure some customer or partner won't use something beyond the capability of Google's import filters?

Again, it's goign to vary office to office. Again, while many offices may have the issue you describe, many will not, or at the least will have that problem sufficiently rarely that they can ask the client or partner to send the document in a different format (PDF, text, whatever) on the few occasions it arises. We're talking about small offices here, so there isn't necessarily much volume of complex formatted documents being exchanged.

Replacement vrs. Inroads.

[twitter]

I seriously doubt any company trying this as a free trial has "completly replaced" MS products with Google Apps.

No, but that does not mean there's not room for significant market share. In a world where half of employees don't have a company email address, you might imagine more than half of employees don't have a company provided productivity suit. That means those employees have no effective and reliable way to communicate electronically. You can't get them the word and they can't tell you what they know - and that's more than half of the people who work for and with you!

This is a double whammy for M$. It's not just market share they can't fill, it's a serious threat to the market share they already have. If Google makes these applications save out and email their work in ODF, M$ had better work with ODF or risk losing the other half of the market to Open Office even faster then they are. M$ has always depended on secret formats and "network effect" to push their expensive crap out. Cheap well adopted alternatives of any type will break that and force M$ to compete on merit instead of inertia.

Hasta la Vista, M$.

Re:Replacement vrs. Inroads.

[geoffspear]

They're claiming 100,000 "completely replaced" MS products. I take this to mean that these companies were using MS apps before and they're not anymore. I also am almost completely sure this is a load of crap.

Re:Replacement vrs. Inroads.

[um... Lucas]

Half of all employees don't have email? I'm thinking if they've made it this far along without it, they probably don't need it...

Does the checkout girl at the grocery store need email?
How about the house painter?
Or the guy that tears tickets in half at the movie theater?

Is that the target market? I'm sure Microsoft is quaking in their boots about the prospect that they missed out on getting McDonalds to shell out for Exchange licenses for all their employees... :)

Re:Replacement vrs. Inroads.

[Ngarrang]

Does the checkout girl at the grocery store need email?
How about the house painter?
Or the guy that tears tickets in half at the movie theater?

Short answer: Yes.

If all of your employees were e-mail connected, you could save money on printing when it comes time to make announcements. The employees are then all able to communicate with each other in a way that they may not be able to at work. Please, do not underestimate the value of encouraging good morale in a workforce. Money is not always the driving force behind a worker. Sometimes, it is about the workplace. Having a good boss, with good work conditions, with good communication can inspire an employee to feel valued. Everyone wants to feel like they are valued by the company.

Let's take the girl working the check-out lane, for example. Her manager could ask for and accept vacation and preferred shifts requests. This creates a paper trail which protects everyone. The manager can then create the shift schedules for the next time period and post it by e-mail and even update a calendar that shows everyone's schedule. Let's say this young lady has an emergency come up. She can post a message to EVERYONE and ask for someone to cover her, exchange shifts, etc.

It all comes down to enabling communication.

Re:Replacement vrs. Inroads.

[tommertron]

All of the benefits you mentioned greatly outweigh even the cost of maintaining a couple of workstations and an internet connection for the staff. Benefits like that are difficult to properly ROI, but are nonetheless important.

Re:Replacement vrs. Inroads.

[u38cg]

This happens a lot in small offices. My company doesn't have a full time IT administrator and the one person that knew the admin passwords left last year. Oops. So now we 'inherit' email accounts. I'm apparently next in line to get cindy. I'm using a gmail account, and ignoring everyone who is trying to tell me to consider the company image (which will be improved by not having up to date email addresses how?).

Re:Replacement vrs. Inroads.

[99BottlesOfBeerInMyF]

If Google makes these applications save out and email their work in ODF, M$ had better work with ODF or risk losing the other half of the market to Open Office even faster then they are.

Well, the idea is basically that you keep the document in Google docs and make it readable or readable and writable to someone else, which is, in a way, better than ODF. Right now the export options from the word processor are ODF, HTML, RTF, Word, and PDF. Google Docs is interoperable with other programs which is probably enough to weaken MS's format lock-in.

Re:Replacement vrs. Inroads.

[rucs_hack]

who needs email? Anyone who thinks they might.
How many people 'needed' comnputers in the seventies? From my point of view it was the ultra cool guys who worked at the local power plant.

In the eighties it was a hobbyist scene, of which I was part (and it was great in ways I cannot describe, no really), but still 'ordinary' people?' using computers? Nah, they didn't 'need' them....

And yet nowadays almost everyone I know, many of whom are the same people, or new people doing the same old normal day to day stuff, 'really need' their machines, and often rely on email for everything from business to family issues.

So who needs email? Probably anyone, about a week after they first start using it.

To Google:

[Anonymous Coward]

Please fix you content network adword scam first....

Really, communication costs money.

[twitter]

maybe, 48% of all employees don't need email to get their jobs done. I know, it sounds heretical, but let's be honest, does K-Fed really need email to operate that McDonald's cash register? Nah, I didn't think so either.

I can't even begin to imagine how much McD spends printing propaganda and instructions for every single employee they have. There's got to be a better way than that. Where there's money, people will find a way.

Re:Really, communication costs money.

[beavis88]

They'd have to print ten times the instructions to get people using a computer and checking email...

I wish

[paulm]

I used to be very excited about this idea. I only have windows boxes around for when I need to run office, usually for excel. OpenOffice does a damn good job nowadays, but there are still some things that have issues.

I was using the google aps for a while and was very happy about the prospect. However, on many occasions, right when I really needed to get at something, google aps were simply broken. I'm sure you've seen gmail get into a confused state where you cannot log in. This usually results in you having to clear your browser cache and delete all cookies, though this doesn't always work. Google makes some change somewhere, and then after a while they figure it out and fix it. But they never tell you when to expect downtime. Google just rolls out new code whenever they feel like it and you wind up suffering.

Until they start to run their services more like a production IT shop, I can't see how anyone can run a business on it.

Re:I wish

[danheretic]

I was using MS Exchange and MS Office on Windows for a while and was very happy about the prospect. However, on many occasions, right when I really needed to get at something, the Exchange server was simply broken, or, Windows on my PC crashed. I'm sure you've seen Windows get into a confused state where you cannot log in. This usually results in you having to boot into safe mode or do a repair install, though this doesn't always work. Microsoft makes some change somewhere, and then after a while they figure it out and fix it. But they never tell you when to expect new patches. Microsoft just rolls out new code whenever they feel like it and you wind up suffering.

Until they start to design their software more like professional IT grade software, I can't see how anyone can run a business on it.

Re:I wish

[teknopurge]

That comment was cute.

I'm sure you've seen Windows get into a confused state where you cannot log in. Not since running 2000.

This usually results in you having to boot into safe mode or do a repair install, though this doesn't always work Can't remember having to do that at any of the last 3 companies I have worked at. Maybe they did it at night with PXE and bootp so it was ready when I came in, after testing it and working all the bugs out before pushing it to end users. I wonder what would happen to google apps if w3c decides to change standards...again...? Hmm, maybe we would have all the different types of browsers render pages differently. Some working with google apps, and others not......

Hmmm....

I Wonder.....

Microsoft makes some change somewhere, and then after a while they figure it out and fix it. But they never tell you when to expect new patches. Microsoft just rolls out new code whenever they feel like it and you wind up suffering. You shouldn't be on the bleeding-edge then. Most enterprises run at least one major release back for just that reason, well, the serious businesses do anyways. I can't vouch for the mom-and-pop shops...

Re:I wish

[danheretic]

Yes, my comment was meant to be tongue-in-cheek. The point I was trying to make is that no system is perfect. It bothers me intensely that every time an alternative to Microsoft is discussed, each and every objection can be applied to Microsoft products too. The one common thread is that the alternatives are almost always much, much more cost effective than Microsoft.

It sounds like you're fortunate to have a well-equipped IT shop watching your back (e.g. PXE and bootp overnight). I wonder how much your business is spending on in-house IT? Just because you don't spend it from your budget doesn't mean your company's not spending it. And just because you, as an end user, don't see the problems doesn't mean someone didn't have to pull an all-nighter frantically working behind the scenes to fix things.

And your comment about web apps breaking? We have some internal IE-only apps that broke when IE7 was released. My guess is that IE, which is not and never has been standards compliant, changes their own "standards" far more frequently than w3c does. So that objection doesn't hold water.

And FYI, we're not on the bleeding edge. We've decided not to do a mass deployment of Vista until SP1, as we did with XP. What, you've *never* had a Windows update catch you by surprise and either crash a computer, or cause some weird interaction with another app or your internal systems? I've seen it quite a number of times. Sure, WSUS helps mitigate that somewhat, but you never *really* know until a patch/app is deployed in the field what true effect it will have.

vice with mating parts

[twitter]

To continue your analogy, the Open Office - on line services vice works so much nicer because it has teeth that mate perfectly, open standards. Half of employees don't have email, so more than half don't have productivity software. What company wants to ignore half of their workforce? A company that only embraces half of the vice will still be doing that because M$ is going to fight ODF until they start losing serious market share, like they did ... today! Once they embrace real standards, they will reduced to one of many options everyone has to chose from. The end of the monopoly is here.

Hasta la vista, M$.

Oldest. Slashdot. User. Ever.

[JacksBrokenCode]

I also remember someone saying that the iron horse would never outrun the real horse...

You actually remember them saying it?

Re:Oldest. Slashdot. User. Ever.

[bgfay]

I've been taking really, really good vitamins.

Re:Oldest. Slashdot. User. Ever.

[JacksBrokenCode]

I knew I shouldn't have skipped the Barney Rubbles.

My first spreadsheet on Google..

[KeepQuiet]

I used it first time and you can't even plot a graph. Why would someone use this?

Re:My first spreadsheet on Google..

[Anonymous Coward]

More to the point, why would someone use a spreadsheet to plot a graph? There's plenty of full featured data visualization tools and such functionality is not required for traditional spreadsheet application.

Re:My first spreadsheet on Google..

[papasui]

Obviously you don't work in a business of any size. Spreadsheets w/graphs are a way of life.

Re:My first spreadsheet on Google..

[Peter La Casse]

Exactly, just as using spreadsheets as databases, calculators and word processing applications is a way of life too.

To your parent poster's credit, though, it's a bad way of life.

Cost of Communications

[twitter]

Microsoft is quaking in their boots about the prospect that they missed out on getting McDonald`s to shell out for Exchange licenses for all their employees... :)

They should be. The M$ solution is too expensive, that's true, but that does not mean there's not a demand. Google filling that demand on the cheap is going to force open standards at last and that will make everything M$ now makes money on into a commodity.

Re:Cost of Communications

[um... Lucas]

Very funny that this was brought up before...

Let's figure the cost of a printed page (offset, NOT laser) at half a cent. Maybe distribution and all that brings it up to a penny (we'll call it 5 cents PER PAGE to be on the absurdly high side). Figure that McDonalds gives each employee 20 pages of documents, that's 1 dollar per employee for all the communications they require to do their jobs.

Now figure a computer for $300, DSL for $40 per month.

Say there's 40 employees there that share the single computer. After 2 months, the cost of the DSL has outstripped the old distribution method. The computer isn't getting paid for, and in fact McDonalds now needs to hire an IT team to service the area (yes, it's google that runs the apps, but someones got to make sure the computers are running in the store), adding additional costs.

Re:Cost of Communications

[twitter]

If the cost per page was the total cost of paper manuals and McD's did not already have themselves networked, you might have a point. It's not and they do, so you don't.

Re:Cost of Communications

[um... Lucas]

I still do. Maybe slashdot isn't best place to advocate that IT isn't the be-all-end-all solution to fixing everything. Sorry, but some for some jobs, workers just don't need email and/or productivity suites to do their jobs, let alone computers. I have a feeling that computers would be damaged on a regular basis, not to mention the extra time needed to show employees how to use them.

What? Some people don't know how to use computers? Yes, it's true... And really, it's not McDonalds' responsibility to show them.

But yes, trust the IT worker to come up with a reason why everyone should have technology...

Re:Cost of Communications

[The Bungi]

You seem to be quite well informed about how McDonald's works, so I guess we'll take your word for it.

Re:Cost of Communications

[um... Lucas]

You're funny...

The entire point is that there are entire sectors of workers who have made it this far along without the applications that we take for granted. And if they've made it this far along without, chances are that there's a reason.

A cashier doesn't need to post on an electronic bulletin board about needing personal days when there's a real life bulletin board that does the job. Employee training materials may be provided in paper form because a company doesn't want to have to shell out the money to purchase computers, have support capacity, when the same thing can be accomplished by a few cheap photocopies or a book that the employee reads and returns.

Back to the McDonalds analogy since you like that one so much... does the cashier need email so they can write to corporate? No. Do they even care about employee morale? I don't think so... there's plenty of high schoolers and felons that need jobs, after all...

Yes, you may want whoever's writing your check to purchase as many desktops as possible, with a slew of applications that need updating, because that keeps you employed, but the reality is, providing people with computers who don't need them only adds extra headache and costs to the system. It's called return on investment; investment means spending money, which a company may not want to do for whatever reason.

Been using the free version for months

[kvsnut]

I've been using the free version for months for my small business and it has been awesome. We are a growing company and I think the free version will suite our needs for many years. There are some additional features I'd like to see but they keep on adding more so I expect them in the near future.

We have two locations and this helps bridge the gap between the offices ( I also use Hamachi for remote connectivity)

So far we use gmail, cal and just starting to use docs and spreadsheets.

Where do you want to go and where are you now?

[twitter]

They're claiming 100,000 "completely replaced" MS products.

Is it so hard to believe that 100,000 businesses decided to step off the upgrade train? Users who have been riding that train for a while are tired of always ending up in the same place. No one is going to buy Office 2007 for new features, they are going to buy it because they are afraid of not being able to use the new M$ format. Enough people are realizing that M$ is an expensive ride to nowhere and that other companies can do the same thing for less.

I also am almost completely sure this is a load of crap.

You will often find that where M$ likes to cram your head. Choo choo!

Re:Where do you want to go and where are you now?

[geoffspear]

Yes. It is hard to believe. Especially since I have Google Apps for my own domain and they've never asked me if I was using them to replace Microsoft applications. I'm not, because I've never had any MS applications installed except for IE and the Office Test Drive that came with my Mac and were promptly deleted the first time I turned it on. I've convinced they have 100,000 domains signed up and their product manager is using that to claim that 100,000 companies have completely switched. If so, this man is a liar and I don't care if he works for a company I like (and I am a big fan of Google, thank you very much) or one I hate. Excuse me for not being a hypocritical fanboy, by M$ isn't cramming my head anywhere.

Re:Where do you want to go and where are you now?

[ssayler]

No one is going to buy Office 2007 for new features, they are going to buy it because they are afraid of not being able to use the new M$ format. Anyone with Office 2000 and above can download the Office Compatiblity Pack and *theoretically* view and edit the new format, OpenXML.

One big problem I have...

[Richard_at_work]

with Google Spreadsheets is that theres a 500KB size limit on pre existing documents - every spreadsheet I have around here exceeds that limit. From what I can see, Google Spreadsheet is worth using, I jsut cant use it.

Anyone know if they have removed this size limit in the Google Apps version, because they certainly havent removed it in the free version.

Re:One big problem I have...

[Anonymous Coward]

No, it's still 500K max.

I just added the Docs & Spreadsheets service (free version), and tried to upload a larger .XLS file, and it choked. Interestingly enough, I saved that same file in OO.org (.ODS) and it went from 545K down to 15K! Granted, the file's not a seriously complicated spreadsheet, but still... 3% the original size! Wow!

I've been using the free version for several months now and just love it. As a previous poster said, there are things I wish would become a feature or implemented differently (I want my own web page style back instead of the pre-set templates & CSS), but I think that's just a matter of time; specially now that larger businesses, with presumably more requirements for their solutions, are trying/using it. I originally just wanted to save the $25/mo I was paying EarthLink, but after switching, I (personally) can't see why any (smaller) business would pass up such a great thing.

One more thing... In response to all the posters that call B$ on the amount of companies using the service: The summery and the article suggests they use it to augment existing solutions. Heck, I'm a "one man show" and I took a month to get everything setup and transferred over (from Outlook and such). Also, in this same vein, I'm sure these companies are not putting critical/sensitive documents online.

Michael C.
ASpaceInTime.com

Could be. Look at his UID.

[the_rajah]

It's only 4 digits!! That's seriously OLD. Well, in Internet years, anyway.

complete and absolute BS (SOX)

[saleenS281]

it's complete and absolute BS for one reason only: SOX compliance. Anyone running their business off of google apps is just begging to be run out of business by the government. There is absolutely no way, with the way google runs their apps, that you could ever meet security or retention requirements for SOX compliance.

Re:complete and absolute BS (SOX)

[lushmore]

This isn't a problem because

1. Small businesses don't care about SOX.

2. Google will beef up the service to meet the needs of publicly traded companies, thus making the Google option so much cheaper than managing the IT part of SOX compliance on your own that companies will have no choice but to use a hosted service.

3. SOX is going away because it blows and it's driving companies away from our stock markets.

Re:complete and absolute BS (SOX)

[saleenS281]

1. *SMALL businesses* better care about SOX. If you're giving my social security number to google, who claims no responsibility for my personal information that they clearly state they will keep forever and use how they see fit, I'm going to sue your ass to oblivion when it gets into the wrong hands. And you as a small business have no way to pass that along to google because you agreed to indemnify them from any responsibility.

2. Google can't. Their grid is not setup in a way to allow it. Again, google clearly states they keep all information forever, and will use it as they see fit. That WILL NOT EVER BE SOX COMPLIANT.

3. Care to provide some data to back that up? I call bullshit.

Re:complete and absolute BS (SOX)

[vgaphil]

I have to agree, my company has been using GAFYD for a while now. Calendar and Talk are really cool an useful but I haven't had the balls to host our mail on Google. It seems like a risk, even for a small company like us....

Re:complete and absolute BS (SOX)

[protactin]

Google allows you to route all email through your own network so you can do any filtering you wish before (possibly) allowing the mail to continue to their servers.

Re:complete and absolute BS (SOX)

[R2.0]

"Care to provide some data to back that up? I call bullshit."

When even Charles Schumer, uber-Dem from NY, says SOX needs changes to be more business friendly, it's a good sign that it REALLY has problems.

Re:complete and absolute BS (SOX)

[saleenS281]

Ya, look at SOX just killing the US stock market!!

Google Finance 1 year report

Oh wait, it's been going up since regulation was implemented... DAMN!

100,000 is a small dent

[snwbrdwndsrf]

NPR talked a bit about this last night, and Microsoft Office has a 350M user base, so Google's 100k of converts is just 0.03%. There are always a portion of any company's customers that are dissatisfied and will try something else; Google just cherry picked the easy ones and the rest are not going to come that easy.

Not a bad thing

[YetAnotherBob]

I wouldn't want this to be where all of my business resides, but as an adjunct service, it's great. I can create (or import) a document, and access that document from anywhere with a good internet connection. Browser independence is a plus. That means if I'm in somebody elses office, we can collaborate.

I wonder how easy it will be to move these documents from Google to my computer and back? That's what would make it a good tool. I also wonder what format options I might have. Time will tell. I use Open Office, Word Perfect, Abi Word and MS Word (97, 2000 and XP) on different machines. Are all those formats supported? If so, it'll fill a need for me right now. Bye Bye Sneaker Net.

Hmmm, what does it cost?

[Daath]

I scanned the comments, I scanned the website, but I was unable to find a figure. What does Google Apps cost now? For private people, for small businesses?

Offtopic: Can you manage several domains under the same setup? I mean, what if I want to use gmail to host mail on, say, three domains. user@dom_a.com should be the same as user@dom_b.com and user@dom_c.com - Is that doable now?

Re:Hmmm, what does it cost?

[vgaphil]

Premium Edition $50/user/year.
Standard Edition $0
For now....

Re:Hmmm, what does it cost?

[ksw2]

Yes, you can associate multiple domains with a single Google Apps account now.

100,000 SME's 100.000 users

[Per Abrahamsen]

Unless all the SME's are one man operations.

KFED doesn't have to work at ...

[Dareth]

KFED doesn't have to work at Mickey D's, cause he done gave Britney the "special sauce" twice over at least!

Photoshopping?

[Frosty Piss]

Graduate Students in my department had to share computers (6 to a PC) until this summer. Now we have crippled dell's which can barely run powerpoint, or do any significant work in Photoshop.

Maybe Graduate Students shouldn't be Photoshopping their work, eh?

Re:Return of the terminal -Event copies in Google?

[nevermore94]

Yes, I love Google Calendar, but I am also forced to use Outlook at work for scheduling as well. There is still one basic feature that I can do with ease in Outlook that I have yet to figure out how to do in Google, and I am hoping someone can clue me in. And that feature is the ability to simply hold down Ctrl and drag an entry to a new day and make a copy of the entry there on that day. In Outlook it is quick and intuitive and I have yet to figure out how to do it in Google.
Any suggestions on quickly making event copies?

Sorry dude, you're misinformed

[Optic7]

1. Only publicly traded companies have to comply with SOX. I don't think the situation you described has anything to do with SOX.

2. I can see your point that Google apps may not be compatible with SOX, but this would matter only to publicly traded companies.

3. You haven't been paying attention to the news. I've seen multiple stories about SOX causing many small publicly traded companies to delist from the stock market and go private, and how it's causing businesses to skip the US stock markets when it comes time for them to do their IPO. In other words, yes, there's a general feeling that SOX is driving business away from the US. Here's an example article I found through a very quick search: Is SOX Driving Small Companies Overseas?

SOX seems to be too onerous on most companies, and only the largest ones can properly put up the effort to meet its requirements. I'm not an expert, so I'm going by what I've read and heard on the news, and by the huge amount of IT changes that SOX has caused at my work. I'm as anti-corporate as they come, and I can see that SOX is having some negative effects. I think he's right that something is going to change.

If they offered reasonably usable backups....

[WoTG]

Yeah, I totally agree.

It's one thing to rely on a third party to handle, host, and process data for you. But at some point, is it really smart to let a person or company have that sort of leverage over you. What happens when Google ratchets up the price of getting to YOUR data?

Sure, Google is a relatively "reasonable" company today, but are you willing to bet your data on it staying that way forever? Not I. Especially when the stakes are high.

Mind you, if Google offered some way to make a local backup that was is something approaching an open standard, e.g. a pile of XML files, then I'd probably be OK with it.

Is Lying Not Consdered Evil?

[Anonymous Coward]

who really believed that "do no evil" lie, anyway.

i know i never did, and this kin dof lying is why.

i've been wrong before, but this wasn't one of those times.

And then their network connection went down. DOH!

[notaprguy]

But seriously, the 100,000 is a total joke. I challenge Google to actually show how they came up with that number and give the names of the companies. I'm sure they wouldn't, citing "confidentiality"...funny, coming from Goggle.

Google Economics

[ayates]

What google have in economic terms done is to create a large segment in the advertising market, a bit like free TV with adverts. They can keep adding new toys to generate the advertising revenue, but it's not the same thing as selling software. As far as selling apps are concerned, this offering is weak. They have higher costs than Microsoft because it's a hosted service. Hosting is a low return capital intensive business, not a money spinner. It only works if you are hosting something new and different. There is not a lot new about cut-down Office-type applications. Sure there's a market, but it's for people who don't really want to pay. I'm not sure the hosting part of the offering really works. What could be really interesting is an appliance with these apps and a bit of storage. You could get an appliance like that for a few hundred dollars and provide the service to 20, 50 people with no Windows Server or Exchange Server CALS; and not even a Windows desktop. Now that would be interesting.

Google gaint Exchange NOT Office

[edbong]

I still dont understand why everybody compares Google Apps to MS Office. Is it not more a MS Exchange replacement. My MS Office (including Outlook) works fine WITH (not against) Google Apps. My bet is Google Apps will move towards file synchronization... and you will be able to do that through the API.... and trhe API is the key.. not the AJAX interface. for example we are developing an FREE open source "business application platform" (think salesforce.com). Our first application is working tightly integrated with GOOGLE APPS. (applicationexchange.com)