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Outlook Inertia the Main Factor Holding Business From Google Apps

Posted by Soulskill on from the safety-blanket dept.

Meshach writes "There's an interesting article in PC World claiming that the major factor preventing businesses from transferring their communication interface from Outlook to Google Apps is employees' unwillingness to give up a tool that's so familiar. Basically, Google is underestimating how attached businesses and their workers are to Office and Outlook in particular. Quoting: 'Google has found out that, yes, many companies are happy to ditch Exchange for Gmail if it means saving money and eliminating the grief of maintaining Exchange in-house. However, and maybe to a degree unexpected by Google, it also discovered that many companies consider it a deal-breaker to lose the functionality that the Outlook-Exchange combo provides, thanks to the deep links that exist between this client-server tandem.'"

49 of 394 comments (clear)

  1. You can use outlook by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Not a great summary .... the article mentions the synchronization tool, so outlook can be the front end. http://www.google.com/apps/intl/en/business/outlook_sync.html

    Doesn't this make it a non-issue ?

    1. Re:You can use outlook by jo42 · · Score: 4, Insightful

      The real issue, from a real business point of view, is that you would have to be totally fsckin' stupid to store your confidential company communication and data on Google's servers -- and in a foreign country if you are not in the US.

    2. Re:You can use outlook by GIL_Dude · · Score: 5, Insightful

      You've certainly nailed one of the biggest issues. The ability to control your data, have a deletion policy that is then subpoena-free (including backup destruction), etc. is certainly a deal breaker for most larger companies.

      There are other issues too though:
      Availability / uptime (and yes, I know a poorly run Exchange infrastructure can have a lot of downtime, but a well run one - ours - has certainly outperformed the availability of Google over the last two years)
      Integration with other MS applications such as SharePoint and Access
      Another aspect of the "data control" is user control - some companies don't want their folks logging on to mail from just any old virus-infected, malware laden machine and want them to only connect via known good machines on the corporate network. Gmail makes that control impossible.

      There are many others, but that's the flavor. I know that some small companies and even some medium ones will think the above concerns are silly and misplaced, but that's the type of argument you are going to get from the big hitters.

    3. Re:You can use outlook by maxume · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Most small businesses would have trouble generating a page worth of sensitive information; the relationships they have with customers (not just the contact info) are the important part of the business (perhaps along with being reliable).

      --
      Nerd rage is the funniest rage.
    4. Re:You can use outlook by MrNaz · · Score: 4, Insightful

      "Does Google actually provide an equivalent to Exchange?"

      Short answer, no.

      As much as I dislike MS software and MS business practices, MS Exchange is a piece of software the likes of which does not exist elsewhere. Nothing else comes close to Exchange and its associated apps. Google Apps doesn't come close to Exchange's functionality. Forget the same ballpark, it's not even on the same planet.

      --
      I hate printers.
    5. Re:You can use outlook by Macfox · · Score: 2, Insightful

      GA isn't for everyone, but it does fit well for small business, educational institutions and community organisations that seek flexible access to data, any time, any place or are under budget constraints.

      There's a heap of US universities using the education edition of Google Apps. Some of them with massive deployments of >50,000 users.

      The thing to keep in mind is that GA is very flexible and it's a trade off between cost, flexibility and security. You can choose which parts you want (email, calendaring, docs, chat, sites, video, etc) If you are concerned about confidential data and trade secrets, then it probably not for you. But to declares anyone who considers Google Apps or other SaaS providers, totally fsckin' stupid is pretty short sighted.

      --
      Area51 - We are watching...
    6. Re:You can use outlook by Rich0 · · Score: 4, Insightful

      You've certainly nailed one of the biggest issues. The ability to control your data, have a deletion policy that is then subpoena-free (including backup destruction), etc. is certainly a deal breaker for most larger companies.

      Not optional for any public company in the US, so a non-issue.

      Uh, I don't follow you. For a large company good control of deletions is mandatory, but how that makes this a non-issue escapes me. Does gmail provide for guaranteed deletion?

      Pretty much every large company is de-facto required to rigorously delete materials that aren't required by law to be kept. The penalty for not doing so is to be buried alive in discovery whenever you are sued (which probably happens about once a week for a big company).

      If a law says that the accounting records used to create a quarterly statement needs to be kept for three years, then you want to keep it for three years (with no meaningful chance of loss), and then make every remote trace of them disappear completely one day later (or as close to this as possible).

      This has nothing to do with covering up wrongful behavior. The fact is that you can comply with the letter of the law today, and then be second-guessed about some decision you made with perfect hindsight 10 years from now. So, unless the law states that those records must be preserved for 10 years, then you don't want those records.

      As an analogy from the sysadmin world - consider system access logs at an ISP (something here most people would intuitively understand). If you are an ISP you want to keep your logs long enough to handle billing disputes or to be able to identify abuses, but you don't want a 10 year record of everything every one of your customers have ever done online. Then, when some man files a subpoena to find out when a relationship between his soon-to-be-ex-wife and her boyfriend started you can just say that your records only go back 30 days so that you don't have anything, instead of having to go digging through the vaults to find backup tapes, and then show up in court to testify about how those records were maintained (a cost you are not really reimbursed for except maybe a token fee).

      Sure, it would be fairly cheap for a big company to save every email ever sent between two people who worked there. However, then whenever somebody gets injured by the company's products there will be some email somewhere between two people joking (or debating) about the product's safety and that will be the "smoking gun" that proves the company covered up the dangers. In every place I've worked the fact is that anytime a decision is made there is somebody who doesn't think it is a good idea - and these people are always praised as prophets when things go wrong. However, if you wait to have unanimous consensus whenever you make a decision nothing would ever get done. A jury has the luxury of not needing to make a profit, and usually fails to find the right risk balance.

    7. Re:You can use outlook by Bigjeff5 · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Er, bullshit?

      I work for one of the largest companies in the world (like, top 25-50 big). It is set up on one massive domain trunk (which I think is crazy, but it works), I can access any server in the world from where I am sitting provided I have the right user access, with rather light protections against user installed software, and no restrictions on USB devices, etc. There are heavy user account restrictions and a computer not on the domain will go nowhere fast. We have had exactly one major malware outbreak in the last three years, and the only thing that warranted it as major was that it was very difficult to remove without interrupting service. It was not able to cause any damage at all.

      With good IT tools (like active directory and utilities that facilitate automation) and strict MANAGEMENT regarding following IT policies it is trivial to secure and maintain the security of even a massive network involving hundreds of thousands of computers. About 30 people or so set the policies and ensure that they are being followed. This works because we use standard hardware with standard images and solid security templates, we leverage the local desktop support to fix machines that are, for one reason or another, not updating their templates or AV software or what have you, and IT has the authority to remove even a local executive's machine from the network if he refuses to allow them to bring it into compliance. If anything comes of it, the executive could easily find himself moved to a less desirable assignment if he is obviously wrong and refuses to follow policy.

      The technical side of things simply requires IT staff that knows what the hell they are doing, and the authority to do what needs to be done. If a company refuses to A.) hire good people and B.) give them the authority to take appropriate action to secure the network, then the network will never be secure. What you are talking about is bad management, and not much more.

      That's not to say IT runs things, nor should they, but they need support at the top executive level in order to do the job correctly. If they have to beg lower management to make any little change, then the network will not be secure. If local departments are permitted to buy their own equipment and actually put it on the corporate network, there is no way the network will be secure either. Ever. That's the kind of stuff you need to control to maintain security. Where I work, an unauthorized device could easily get you a visit from the local security guys, who also have the power to terminate your employment if the issue is a severe enough security threat. Nobody puts their own equipment on the network without permission first.

      --
      Security is mostly a superstition... Avoiding danger is no safer in the long run than outright exposure. - Helen Keller
    8. Re:You can use outlook by Bigjeff5 · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Exchange is easily the most powerful email server on the market. Nothing touches it so far.

      Communicator is part of Exchange, it's not separate, you can't use the communicator client without an Exchange server. This means it integrates -very- tightly with Outlook. Sharepoint is separate but integrates tightly with Exchange as well, which allows nice integration into Communicator and Outlook. Live Meeting is tied in with all of them as well, and is becoming a very popular tool.

      Gmail and Google Apps are cool, but they don't approach this level of facilitating communication. Microsoft makes things easy to the point that, if the backoffice side is set up properly, the user just says "Oh I just click here? Ok, that's easy".

      --
      Security is mostly a superstition... Avoiding danger is no safer in the long run than outright exposure. - Helen Keller
  2. Exchange-Outlook-SharePoint, baby! by LibertineR · · Score: 4, Insightful
    I know, I know, the prevailing opinion is that SharePoint sucks, but in my experience, companies that grab hold of SharePoint integration with Exchange and MS Office, would rather give up their children than that combo.

    Where is the competition for that ENTIRE feature set, for a comparative amount of money?

    Its full Lock-In, and I have no idea how Google competes with that.

    1. Re:Exchange-Outlook-SharePoint, baby! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Does Google Apps let you host the data yourselves? The only time we want our confidential information off-site is in the form of encrypted backups.

    2. Re:Exchange-Outlook-SharePoint, baby! by westlake · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Where is the competition for that ENTIRE feature set, for a comparative amount of money?

      This is where the geek gets it wrong.

      He sees the MS Office suite or perhaps Exchange.

      What he doesn't see is that Microsoft - and Microsoft's partners - can deliver a turn key solution for a business of any size.

      Microsoft has had close on to 35 years experience and - quite literally - tens of billions of dollars to spend on the study of office work.

    3. Re:Exchange-Outlook-SharePoint, baby! by Sycraft-fu · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Ya that's part of the rub with using Google things for a business. They hold all your data. What's more, Google is the ultimate data mining company. They have tools like no one else for looking through vast amounts of data to find what they want. As such, they could, if they wished, very easily dig in to our data for company secrets. Now, they say they won't, but all you have is their word on that. While that's fine for a home user, I don't see that as fine if I run a business, especially a public company. It'd be a great way to get yourself in trouble with your shareholders.

      So while I use Gmail myself, I wouldn't want to use Gmail for business, especially a tech business. Hopefully, Google would leave all my mail alone and respect my privacy. Probably they would. However, what if they don't? What if they find plans we have for bringing an amazing new product to market, and they then beat us to the punch?

      So I think there's more than just inertia at play here. With business information, you have to start to take things like secrecy seriously. That generally means hosting your own stuff or, if you must use a 3rd party, make sure they are a disinterested 3rd party. By that I mean if you take a big data centre, who's only business is holding servers, they aren't that interested in what is on there, nor do they really have the capability to look. Their market is, well, holding servers. However Google, their market is tech toys of all kinds, and they keep expanding in to new areas. Thus they might well be interested in what you are doing.

    4. Re:Exchange-Outlook-SharePoint, baby! by Bert64 · · Score: 3, Insightful

      If you sign up for and pay for a service, then Google are obliged to continue providing that service for the term of the contract providing you keep up your end of the bargain (ie paying for it)...
      They are also obliged to abide by any other terms in the contract, so as a business you would be foolish to not demand clauses that forbid Google from mining your data or doing anything else with it not directly related to providing the service.. You should also demand the ability to download all of your data at any time you wish in a standard format so that you can keep your own backup and/or have the data available to you for migrating to another service.

      Companies trust their critical data and resources to other companies all the time... There are companies who specialize in storing or destroying massive quantities of hard copy documents for instance, not to mention courier or security companies.

      This is actually a better situation than using MS apps, which come with no warranty and often provide no method or guarantee to get the data out in a standard format.

      Obviously the best plan is to have the data on your own hardware, in formats which you have full documentation for, and using software which you have an unlimited irrevocable right to use for any purpose, but neither MS nor Google offer this right now.

      --
      http://spamdecoy.net - free throwaway anonymous email - avoid spam!
    5. Re:Exchange-Outlook-SharePoint, baby! by tronbradia · · Score: 2, Insightful

      They have tools like no one else for looking through vast amounts of data to find what they want. As such, they could, if they wished, very easily dig in to our data for company secrets. Now, they say they won't, but all you have is their word on that.

      You have their 'word' but it would also ruin their reputation if they were caught, and unless you're emailing around the Minuteman launch codes, I'm pretty confident that Google's reputation is worth more than your data. If you get a security system for your house, the security company would have a very easy time robbing you, but their reputation is worth a lot more to them than whatever is in your house. If you think about it that way, Google has more incentive to keep your data safe than your own IT people do.

  3. Market it to Notes users by chiph · · Score: 4, Insightful

    They'll change in a heartbeat -- anything .. Anything! to get away from Notes.

    Chip H.

  4. In other news by Joce640k · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Windows inertia keeping people from using a proper operating system.

    --
    No sig today...
    1. Re:In other news by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Insightful

      Windows inertia keeping people from using a proper operating system.

      Once I can boot into a new Linux install and have my four monitors come up without having to manually edit files and search forums for answers....then you can call Linux a proper operating system.

    2. Re:In other news by budgenator · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Windows inertia keeping people from using a proper operating system.

      Once I can boot into a new Linux install and have my four monitors come up without having to manually edit files and search forums for answers....then you can call Linux a proper operating system.

      Once I can boot into a new Windows install and have my four monitors come up without having to manually registry files and search internet for drivers....then you can call Windows a poser operating system.

      --
      Apocalypse Cancelled, Sorry, No Ticket Refunds
  5. Too much in too little time by BadAnalogyGuy · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Google is trying to explode onto the scene with products and services that compete head to head with some very deeply ingrained technologies. Sometimes, like with the ChromeOS, it's like they are trying to compete against themselves.

    What they will find is that earning a good reputation through customer satisfaction is the way to win over customers. Trying to bowl them over with competing products is almost never effective.

    Google Search didn't kill Yahoo! search in one fell swoop.
    Gmail didn't become dominant (and it still isn't) against Hotmail/Live Mail right away.
    Google Maps was able to leverage the Google Search engine, but still has stiff competition from Yahoo! Maps and MapQuest.

    But lately, they've been producing new products at an astonishing rate. Taking the shotgun approach of seeing which spaghetti sticks to the wall, Google doesn't seem to have a larger view of what they want to do with their technical talent. This is going to be their downfall in the long run as the advertisement-based profit stream slowly dries up.

    1. Re:Too much in too little time by Insanity+Defense · · Score: 2, Insightful

      But lately, they've been producing new products at an astonishing rate. Taking the shotgun approach of seeing which spaghetti sticks to the wall,

      Is it really just lately? It is also possible that a lot of these products have been in the pipeline for some time and we see them as they mature to the point of public testing. We may have seen things like GMail and Google maps sooner because they were early starts compared to what is coming out now. It takes time to start and mature a product to even a public beta testing level.

    2. Re:Too much in too little time by Lennie · · Score: 3, Insightful

      I think this is, because a lot of their services are offered free and they are looking for more profitable businessmodels. Advertisments is their only really profit machine at this point.

      --
      New things are always on the horizon
    3. Re:Too much in too little time by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Insightful

      What they will find is that earning a good reputation through customer satisfaction is the way to win over customers. Trying to bowl them over with competing products is almost never effective.

      Yeah like Google really gives noone a choice of search engines. And people are forced to use google because... D'UH.

      Google Search didn't kill Yahoo! search in one fell swoop.
      Gmail didn't become dominant (and it still isn't) against Hotmail/Live Mail right away.
      Google Maps was able to leverage the Google Search engine, but still has stiff competition from Yahoo! Maps and MapQuest.

      And since when did Google set out to 'kill' Yahoo?

      Gmail > Hotmail/Live/whatever it is now.
      Yahoo has maps? MapQuest.. never heard of...

    4. Re:Too much in too little time by mjwx · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Google Maps was able to leverage the Google Search engine, but still has stiff competition from Yahoo! Maps and MapQuest.

      Google Map's main competition when it was launched was ESRI's ArcIMS/WMS servers (Internet Mapping Service/Web Mapping Service) as well as other IMS/WMS based on non ESRI products but most were based on ESRI products. Yahoo and MapQuest as well as MS's Virtual Earth offerings were responding to Google.

      Where google differed is that it offered pre-prepared imagery to the public either free or at a decent cost (Google have had an interest in satellite imagery long before Google Maps was released, their participation in the GeoEye project for example) and provided a pre-made gateway for that service (all other solutions required you to build your own host). They also had the first decent public mapping gateway combined with a very well integrated an easy to use free public client.

      ESRI responded to Google by combining the separate IMS and WMS products into a single product (ArcGIS Server).

      Taking the shotgun approach of seeing which spaghetti sticks to the wall,

      What most people don't see unless they've worked in the GIS field is that Google has been involved in mapping and imagery for a while now. It's the same with their other offering. Android was not introduced overnight, same with Google Docs/apps. A great deal of behind the scenes work goes on with Google releases and normally a very long public beta to get rid of the bugs before the final product is released.

      --
      Calling someone a "hater" only means you can not rationally rebut their argument.
  6. Not willing to give up functionality?? by magisterx · · Score: 5, Insightful

    it also discovered that many companies consider it a deal-breaker to lose the functionality that the Outlook-Exchange combo provides

    Isn't that the same as saying that companies like the functionality and are willing to pay for it?

    I could certainly understand the point if it had said that they are not willing to lose the current interface or not willing to lose the training time already put in, but saying they are not willing to lose the functionality is the same as saying it is good software, they are willing to pay for it, and they are not willing to switch until someone can come up with something actually better.

  7. Microsoft shell game by chrylis · · Score: 5, Insightful

    The most exasperating irony of this situation (and its siblings of getting people to switch off of MS Office and Windows) is that each new version of Windows (and, recently Office) is a drastically new product anyway. Businesses say they don't want to retrain employees (and schools say that they have to train for MS products)--and then when XP or Vista or Win7 rolls around, they retrain anyway but still claim that familiarity with the interface is the reason they won't consider alternatives.

    1. Re:Microsoft shell game by jimicus · · Score: 4, Insightful

      All this droning on about training but I've never seen a company offer any training on anything other than custom applications that are specific to the organisation. Windows and Office training may have happened years ago when computers were new but today...

  8. Secrecy by Necroman · · Score: 5, Insightful

    I think it's more about letting another company handle your company's email. There is so much critical information about a company in their email, why would they trust it to any external company, even if it is Google. Also, I'm unfamiliar with how Google handles data retention of email. Outlook allows some backup of emails at the IT level of all company emails (included deleted ones).

    I know I wouldn't want to have my company give up control of it's email to Google (5000 person company).

    --
    Its not what it is, its something else.
    1. Re:Secrecy by dissy · · Score: 2, Insightful

      I think it's more about letting another company handle your company's email. There is so much critical information about a company in their email, why would they trust it to any external company, even if it is Google. Also, I'm unfamiliar with how Google handles data retention of email. Outlook allows some backup of emails at the IT level of all company emails (included deleted ones).

      The article is clearly talking about comparing things to Exchange server.
      If you won't trust your email with another company, they won't be running Exchange since Microsoft (read: another company) makes that software.

      There is no more trust from Google than currently with Microsoft for using a Google App Appliance.

      You are saying businesses won't trust putting their email on a Google app server in the companies server farm, because that is somehow different from putting their email on an exchange server in the companies server farm?

      Somehow using software from Google on your own hardware is trusting Google, yet using software from Microsoft on your own hardware is not trusting Microsoft?

      http://www.google.com/enterprise/

      If a company won't trust software from Google, unless they are just lying and being hypocrites, are already avoiding Exchange for the exact same reason.
      If they ARE on Exchange server, they are already running Exchange in-house, so there is no difference in running Google Apps in-house as well. Exactly nothing internal leaves the company in either case.

      We're not talking about Google's free personal Gmail service only available online here ;}

  9. Client-server works well for many applications by sphealey · · Score: 3, Insightful

    >> it also discovered that many companies consider it a deal-breaker to
    >> lose the functionality that the Outlook-Exchange combo provides

    > Isn't that the same as saying that companies like the functionality
    > and are willing to pay for it?

    I think it is a more general unwillingness to accept that the client-server model works pretty darn well for many business-intensive apps, and that fat clients often are better suited to business use than browser-based apps. If pure mobility is the goal than the browser-based systems are a necessity, but I have seen too many unfortunate office workers clicking away at browser windows for tasks that could have been handled in seconds by a directly-connected interface.

    sPh

  10. Re:Absolutely true by Swampash · · Score: 1, Insightful

    The bizarre thing is that Outlook really isn't very good

    It used to be, once upon a time. I remember being blown away by Outlook 98. It just annihilated every other mail client on functions, interface, and usability. I swore by Outlook for years and years.

    However, when I was asked by my present employer to select and deploy a new email system, I chose Google Apps, and now I do everything in gmail via a browser. Because it's better.

  11. Re:Microsoft may just fix this themselves by Registered+Coward+v2 · · Score: 5, Insightful

    If the next version of Outlook is as different as the last issue of Word was from everything that went before, the advantage of familiarity will disappear.

    I think it's a little different with Outlook - the tasks are much simpler (read and respond to email, manage a calender) for most users - many of who probably on use one or two task bar items (New, Reply, print) or tabs (Day, week, Month) so the switch wont entail learning a lot of new menus. So even if you change the overall interface as long as the on-screen view is relatively familiar people won't care.

    Word, otoh, is much more of a user intensive experience; requiring the use of more commands, even if some are used infrequently. As a result, interface changes have a much greater impact.

    --
    I'm a consultant - I convert gibberish into cash-flow.
  12. Re:What about hosted Exchange? by gonz · · Score: 2, Insightful

    I think it's more about letting another company handle your company's email. There is so much critical information about a company in their email, why would they trust it to any external company, even if it is Google.

    Thousands of companies leave their mail on other companies servers when they use Hosted Exchange. The issues usually boils down to whether or not a company wants to admin their own Exchange servers in-house.

    You're comparing apples and oranges here. With hosted Exchange, you're entrusting your data to a medium-sized company that specializes in hosting Exchange. They charge a fee because that's really their business plan. With Google Apps, you're entrusting your data to a massive leviathan that aims to eventually be a competitor for every business in every industry, and who specializes in mining the hell out of everyone else's data. Google doesn't charge a fee because your data is way more valuable to them than the actual cost of hosting it.

    Sure, Google has a privacy policy. But what good is a promise to only use your data to "improve our services" and "develop new services", when those "services" are completely unbounded? Google is constantly trying to invent new services, and inevitably its services will turn into a conflict of interest.

    Google might be appropriate for individuals who don't see any value in data privacy. But it's not appropriate for a business.

    -Gonz

  13. Re:SEE? Just like a woman! by DoofusOfDeath · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Oh come on now. He isn't all that bad. Sure, he has his issues. He is slow. He is bloated. He doesn't treat me correctly. He's complex. He's slow. The way he treats me leaves a lot to be desired. Sure, I would rather he talked to me instead of punch me in the face. He is slow. He has a hard time staying employed. But really, he's not THAT bad...

    But... the chairs. Oh God, the chairs...

  14. GMail is a joke compared to Outlook by BitZtream · · Score: 5, Insightful

    I'm the lead developer for a product that is currently available only for Outlook (shameless plug/advertisement: http://www.lettermark.com/ )

    The next major release which of the system, which now supports Thunderbird, Gmail, Yahoo mail, Apple Mail, and of course Outlook is in the early alpha stages and has been given to several of our larger clients. We've worked with these clients through their Outlook upgrades, complaints and joys.

    I can tell you that none of them will ever switch to Gmail as it stands. Theres a good chance none of them will switch off Outlook any time soon, period.

    Its not JUST about the company data sitting somewhere else, that really doesn't bother a lot of companies as shocking as it sounds.

    The problem? Any of the customers we have, and pretty much ALL of the customers we have that are over 100 seats ALL have other products besides ours that integrate with Outlook to make their email part of a larger workflow. These people track sales, customer relations, trouble tickets, orders, you name it, ALL via Outlook and most of the time using Exchange so that the data can nicely be shared, calendars can be viewed, ect.

    Some of this you can do with GMail, but its a pain in the ass. We also have use Google Apps for your Domain to test with. Its not even close, and can't be until they open it up. Yes, Outlook is far more open than GMail in its wettest dreams.

    GMail doesn't let my random sales person app hit a button then thrown an entire wedding planning itinerary into an email to the customer, which is also stored in the sales system.

    GMail doesn't let my random technical support person import the message into our issue tracking system.

    GMail doesn't let me encrypt messages with personally identifiable information in it, which is required by law, regardless of whom it is sent to in a couple of states now.

    In short, you may call it 'inertia' if by 'inertia' you mean a far more mature and feature rich product. Otherwise it is simply, and I cringe as I type this, that Outlook is a far more useful tool than GMail.

    I HAVE to deal with Outlook and Exchange, I know far too much about it. I ABSOLUTELY CAN NOT STAND IT. The only reason we're supporting other email clients going forward is because I refuse to be forced to use Outlook for email, so I want a choice. Fortunately, there are still large organizations that use things like Groupwise and Lotus Notes which allowed me a very nice business case for supporting more than just Outlook when I took the project over.

    But if you think for a second there is a replacement for the Outlook/Exchange combination for a integrated solution of your typical business persons email/contacts/calendar then you're are completely out of touch with reality. I REALLY REALLY wish there was, but there isn't. And GMail isn't anything more than OWA, with less features and a better UI. Its just missing far too many features and the ability for third party software to integrate with it for it to become a replacement for Outlook. Not to mention the legal issues as to why companies really shouldn't be using GMail when customer data is being emailed.

    I wish that someone out there would realize this and actually make real Thunderbird extensions to make it on par with the Outlook, but it doesn't exist. I've used all the OSS alternatives, if you think they are equal, you haven't used one of the two things you are comparing. It wouldn't even freaking be hard, all you need is some damn plugins that use IMAP folders for storing things. Do it on something like Cyrus IMAP which has proper notify support and it really could be just as good if not better than exchange! I'd do it myself if I wasn't so overloaded aleady.

    --
    Persistent Volume manager for Kubernetes - https://github.com/dwimsey/openshift-pvmanager
    1. Re:GMail is a joke compared to Outlook by jimicus · · Score: 4, Insightful

      All of the things you're describing as locking these people into Outlook sound like things that could better be handled *outside* of Outlook.

      They're probably integrated with Outlook because the problem they solve is fundamentally 70% communication, 30% organising that communication in some fashion. Their plugin provides the 30% organising, Outlook provides the communication.

      I could equally ask - why the Hell do so few PDAs and smartphones support IMAP NOTIFY? It gives you push email using a perfectly good standard that works quite happily with any half-decent IMAP server. Concept-wise, it's not drastically different to ActiveSync (client establishes a TCP/IP connection with the server, says "let me know when something new comes in" and keeps the connection open).

  15. Re:People WILL change... by Tenebrousedge · · Score: 2, Insightful

    No, Vista was shit when it came out. There were several serious bugs, one involving file copying, performance issues, incredible amounts of driver issues (graphics drivers especially), and the whole 'vista ready' mess.

    I'll grant that the situation is much improved now.

    Whether or not IT media is shit, the initial reports on Vista were extremely positive, from the betas to shortly after the release. I presume Microsoft paid for a good many of those, but the point is more that the bad press started after Vista had been released and in use for a while.

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  16. Agreed - Too Much of a Paradigm Shift by vinn · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Yup, you'd pretty much have to pry Outlook out of my cold dead fingers before switching to Google's apps. See, it's not the software, it's the way I work. Outlook just so happens to fit the style of how I like to work, organize my my stuff, organize appointments, and has some nice integration points with tools I need, like CRM.

    (Note: I'm not a Microsoft fanboy. I've been using Linux since 1995 and my first mail client was mh.)

    Google wants me to rethink how I work in order to use their tools. I don't have cute little folders, I have to deal with "labels". I want filters to put mail into folders, not labels, because I don't want to deal with seeing the new mail in my Inbox that I know is irrelevant; I want the Facebook mail in a Facebook folder I can ignore all week long. Searching isn't necessarily as nice as sorting because sometimes my brain might remember someone's initials, but not their full last name. When I want to see all the "K's", I want to see all the K's. All in all, I find it too foreign of a way to work to be truly comfortable. However, I do use it for my personal mail.

    By the way, the argument about using them for hosted services isn't a showstopper for our business. We have 2 Exchange servers and I fully intend on moving them to some kind of hosted solution around the time Exchange 2010 comes out. We have 200 mail accounts or so and I don't really have a problem trading off the amount of administration for someone else taking care of the data.

    PS. The killer app for me for the year is Google Voice. It's going to change how I work and I love it.

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    ----- obSig
  17. Re:Proper operating systems... by drinkypoo · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Linux's file dialogs are too obsolete to call it a modern operating system.

    They don't seem notably different from, say, Vista's to me. Or for that matter, OSX's (except that I STILL find the multi-pane approach more confusing than just looking at a current folder... though the way Vista displays directory paths and lets me easily reselect any path element is beautiful.)

    Can you please explain why a file dialog needs to do more than let me find a file with different folder views? Or what, specifically, is missing from the dialogs commonly used in KDE and GNOME applications?

    --
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  18. What The Fuck? by Colin+Smith · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Linux's file dialogs

    Really? That's it? That's all you can come up with?

    All the current OS concepts of file management "suck donkey balls" as they say. You know what I want? A tag based filesystem. WTF should I have to manage directories?

     

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  19. Re:Proper operating systems... by CAIMLAS · · Score: 2, Insightful

    What are you talking about, wrt W7 dialogs being so drastically superior to "Linux's file dialogs"?

    KDE (the design's about 5+ years old at this point - since KDE 3):
    http://commit-digest.org/issues/2007-01-14/files/katetest-kio_file.png

    The 'file dialog' has been optionally "universalized" in KDE4 via dolphin: http://artipc10.vub.ac.be/serendipity/uploads/screenshots/kde4.1/kde4-desktop.jpg

    Ok, so W7 finally gets similar functionality in a pre-release 7+ years after KDE had it.
    http://blogs.msdn.com/yvesdolc/archive/2009/01/07/windows-7-libraries-and-the-common-file-dialog.aspx

    Is there something significant I'm missing here, or are you just blowing smoke? The file dialog in W7 is not only almost identical to what KDE has had since early 2002 (no, I'm not claiming they 'stole' anything), but it's also a dialog lacking the vast majority of the function that KDE has in its dialog.

    (Now, GTK2/GNOME, on the other hand, is a bit of an ugly kludge akin to the newer OSX Finder interface, but that is largely an argument of preference, I think.)

    You want to talk about a crappy interface, let's take a look at the paragraph-of-irritation style "file copy" dialog in W7:

    http://www.sevenforums.com/attachments/general-discussion/4566d1234384335-copy-replace-dialog-there-way-get-old-one-like-xp-screen2.png

    Explain to me why I need 1"^2 icons, with sublimated text and the important bits shoved off into a corner or otherwise de-emphasized? It's almost as if they want you to just click "yes" and ignore what it says. How useless (and irritating). KDE4 isn't much better, but at least its evident where the better implementation came from (first):

    http://imagebin.ca/img/8GQHAD.png

    In closing, bitching about the file dialog (presumably in GNOME) as a reason why "linux" is not a modern operating system is comical, especially when the 'major look' as well as many of the nice-to-have features of W7 are (by the opinions of many MS and Linux fans alike) a near-copy of KDE 4 functionality/features/look/feel. And when you consider that it was only a couple years ago when MS got an actual security model on their desktop OS (which still doesn't really work properly). That seems like a pretty obvious requirement for a "modern operating system" to me.

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  20. This is part of my job, and no, we won't be switch by taustin · · Score: 4, Insightful

    And it's got nothing to do with behavioral inertia. Cloud computing adds an additional point of failure. Right now, with Office, if our T-1 goes down, OK, we can't check our email, but we can keep doing other things, like work on spreadsheets to send out by email when the T-1 is back up. With cloud computing, when the T-1 is down, everything is down.

    Yeah, I know, Google Apps has options for working offline, but then, what's the point? How is it different, at that point, from Office?

    No thanks. I know how reliable T-1s are. Yeah, pretty reliable, but without offline capabilities, we're out of business.

    (Plus, I think whoever wrote this has little idea how many business use apps that Google will never have any interest in duplicating, like our cash register functions, and frankly, it would be illegal for us to let them handle some of that information anyway.)

  21. Re:Condescending comments like this make me laugh by skeeto · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Windows really is a poorly designed OS, and as such I view it as an expensive toy. To name some things from the perspective from a fairly fresh install:

    It intentionally hides lots of information from the user for the sake of hand-holding. The execution permission on the filesystem is stored in the filename (ie ".exe"). The shell sucks. The filesystem has all kinds of stupid, arbitrary limitations (like no ?, <, >, ", *, :, | characters allowed). Case insensitive filenames. No package manager (at all!). Still use archaic "drives" for the filesystems. Spaces in system path names. Severe limitations on the size of environmental variables. A seriously piss poor excuse for a browser. Lots of GUI-only configuration. The registry. No SSH. No X. No basic commands (find, grep, ln, df, du, etc.; part of shell sucking really). Extremely shitty text editor. Regular BSODs (yes, even Vista; I have yet to personally see a linux kernel panic, or any other crash that required a reboot). No decent interpreters (even the barest unix installs always have an awk, and almost always have perl).

    Luckily, some of this can be fixed by installing tools ported from unixland (cygwin can help for a bit until it quickly falls into a broken state). However, because of the lack of package manager this can be time consuming.

    So not only is it expensive and proprietary, it's technically inferior in almost every way.

  22. Re:Condescending comments like this make me laugh by okmijnuhb · · Score: 2, Insightful

    How about no built-in handling for zip or iso files? And then when the OS asks if you would like it to search the net for handlers, it comes up empty!
    I love when I open an attachment in outlook, and when i close the email, it asks if I would like to save the file's changes. Whether or not i say yes or no, it gives me the same ridiculous dialog without saving any changes.
    I love being nagged by my OS every 5 minutes to reboot after an update. I love being pestered and annoyed by my "real" OS, while I am trying to get some work done, just because my OS thinks it's work is more important than mine.

  23. Re:Condescending comments like this make me laugh by drsmithy · · Score: 2, Insightful

    The execution permission on the filesystem is stored in the filename (ie ".exe").

    False.

    The shell sucks.

    How so ?

    The filesystem has all kinds of stupid, arbitrary limitations (like no ?, , ", *, :, | characters allowed).

    These are limitations within the shell, not the filesystem.

    Case insensitive filenames.

    This is most definitely a feature, not a problem.

    No package manager (at all!).

    That's because it doesn't have the dependency hell that requires such a thing in Linux.

    Still use archaic "drives" for the filesystems.

    Windows has supported (easily) mounting drives underneath directories for nearly a decade. People prefer drives because they are a more sensible organisation tool.

    Spaces in system path names.

    Irrelevant at best. Not to mention, why would you be referencing paths (that might not be consistent) across systems instead of using the environment variables or API calls ?

    Severe limitations on the size of environmental variables.

    For example ?

    A seriously piss poor excuse for a browser.

    That most people find more than adequate. Can't be that bad.

    Lots of GUI-only configuration.

    Irrelevant.

    The registry.

    What's the problem with a transactional database ?

    No SSH.

    Remote desktop instead.

    No X.

    Terminal services and remote desktop is superior in pretty much every way.

    No basic commands (find, grep, ln, df, du, etc.; part of shell sucking really).

    Irrelevant to most all users. Installable for those who desire it.

    Extremely shitty text editor.

    Irrelevant and unnecessary.

    Regular BSODs (yes, even Vista; I have yet to personally see a linux kernel panic, or any other crash that required a reboot).

    If your system is BSODing regularly, your hardware or drivers are broken. Not an OS issue.

    No decent interpreters (even the barest unix installs always have an awk, and almost always have perl).

    Also irrelevant and unnecessary to most all users. Installable if desired.

    So not only is it expensive and proprietary, it's technically inferior in almost every way.

    You've listed a whole bunch of stuff that's either flat-out erroneous or userspace personal preference. Nothing technical.

  24. Re:Condescending comments like this make me laugh by Bert64 · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Being "standardized" is both a good and a bad thing... One size does not fit all, and a monoculture is no good for anyone... The ability to select the best tool for the job rather than having to use a "standard" is a good thing. Data should be standardized, but how you interact with it should be a matter of choice... Roads are standard, tv signals are standard, but people drive all kinds of different vehicles and use different types of tv.
    But to answer your question:

    Windows makes a terrible server platform, you can't strip it down to the bare minimum, you can't install and manage it from a serial console... and don't mention the "cli only mode" in windows 2008, their idea of cli only is to load the entire gui layer and then put a cmd.exe window in the middle of it... what was the point in loading the gui layer with all it's overhead just to display a cli? a windowed cli will never work over a serial console either...

    On a desktop system the interface is extremely clunky, and is very much geared towards doing things their way or nothing... Their way doesn't suit me, the default ways of most linux distros don't suit me either but linux is much easier to customize.

    Linux is easy to use without a command line, modern distros will let you do everything most users will ever want without a command line... And yet, many seasoned users actively choose to use the command line on linux.. Why? because in many cases it's easier, much easier for an experienced user, and much easier to explain when trying to help an unskilled user. Windows users, even experienced ones rarely use the command line mostly because the windows cli is pretty bad, but one counter example is when someone doing phone support wants an ip address from a windows user they're supporting, they almost always have them open a command prompt and type "ipconfig"... Why? because that's easier than finding the IP through the gui (which i assume can be done somehow).
    Because of this people get the impression linux is only usable from the cli, when in reality the cli is often the best but not the only way to do many things...

    And when it comes to advanced things, a cli where you can cut+paste is much easier than regedit...

    Another issue is package management, windows simply doesn't have one, on linux i can just open my package manager, search for what i want and hit install, and what i want is installed including any dependencies it has, or i can do it from the cli. Windows requires you to manually find what you want through google, trust that the download site you find is reputable (when was the last time a windows user downloaded a file from a random download site and then compared the checksums with a set published by an official site?), and then wait for the download to finish before you can manually execute and follow through with the installer. That is just a HUGE pain in the ass.

    Multiple workspaces - i cant live without multiple workspaces, and all the windows implementations i've seen have sucked, mostly because no apps or even the basic window manager are designed with workspaces in mind. And yes, aside from workspaces i can't stand the way the windows window manager works, i find it clunky and inflexible.

    Foreign filesystems - linux comes with support for all kinds of filesystems out of the box, windows just doesn't, and what third party filesystem drivers do exist are often poorly implemented, buggy or both... I have to read disks from macs, bsd and linux boxes all the time and occasionally misc other systems, windows just doesn't cut it, they arrogantly only support their own filesystems.

    Source - I want the ability to modify the source code of the programs i use, to do things the authors never intended... I also want to be able to use new and exciting hardware, many years ago i used alpha, more recently i was using 64bit amd64 very early on and these days i would be looking at low power arm based systems, microsoft have always been playing catch up and the closed source nature of most windows apps make

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  25. Re:Condescending comments like this make me laugh by skeeto · · Score: 2, Insightful

    In several of your responses you cite that "typical users" don't need it, which only reinforces my comment about Windows being a toy operating system. Typical users use their computers as a browser/e-mail appliance, and maybe some word processing or games. It's a toy. To be clear, I am not saying there is something wrong with that, and it doesn't make typical users "stupid" or anything.

    But for serious computing, like research, simulation, large data processing, etc., a unix-like system is going to be incredibly more useful. I work in a laboratory and I see first-hand all the time how Windows continually gets in the way of productivity. Management and overhead prefers Windows because they like Office and Outlook and that whole thing, but the technical people, needing flexible computing systems, generally prefer some kind of unix-like system when they have a choice.

    The execution permission on the filesystem is stored in the filename (ie ".exe").

    False.

    Upon further examination I now see this is entirely true, but that's how it effectively works. If someone emails me a file with a .exe suffix Windows will automatically execute it if I click on it wrong. In unix, I would need to manually set the execute permission. In Windows, the sender is effectively setting this. Combined with hiding file extensions by default probably makes this one of the biggest mistakes in computing history. The solution right now in the case of email is to block filenames with "bad" suffixes.

    The shell sucks.

    How so ?

    The unix shells are some of the most powerful computer interfaces. The traditional Windows shell doesn't even come close. I read a bit about PowerShell when it came out, but I am still not convinced it even comes close either.

    The filesystem has all kinds of stupid, arbitrary limitations (like no ?, , ", *, :, | characters allowed).

    These are limitations within the shell, not the filesystem.

    I am corrected again. A test with ntfs-3g allowed me to use these characters. From Windows though, the this is still effectively a limit on the filesystem. Is there an API that gives enough access to do it? I've never seen a program use it.

    On several occasions I have had filenames with some of these characters in them, threw them in a tarball, brought them into the Windows world, and found mangled filenames upon extraction.

    For example, I would make a static wget recursive mirror of a website, which includes the CGI arguments in the filenames, like "index.php?q=hello". On Windows, the static version becomes unnavigatable because of the mangled names. It's really frustrating.

    Case insensitive filenames.

    This is most definitely a feature, not a problem.

    Case of newbie hand-holding. See top of post.

    No package manager (at all!).

    That's because it doesn't have the dependency hell that requires such a thing in Linux.

    I guess you don't have much experience with a good package manager? Dependencies are an issue that these solve, but they are really fantastic for maintaing and entire system. With a single command I can update all the software on my system. With one command I can install a number of desired packages. On Windows, each package has to do this itself, each with its own interfaces and deamons, which is a stupid way to do it.

    I can't imagine maintaining a system without it.

    Still use archaic "drives" for the filesystems.

    Windows has supported (easily) mounting drives underneath directories for nearly a decade. People prefer drives because they are a more sensible organisation tool.

    People prefer them because it's what they are used to, and its what all that legacy software needs to see. I think the unix root-style (/) way is much more sensible. To each his own.

    Spaces in system path n

  26. My Reasons why I would never recoomend Google Apps by kzieli · · Score: 2, Insightful

    I'd never recommend use of google apps for a whole different set of reasons:

    1. Your putting all your data on some one else's server without a contract.
    2. Hence their is no uptime garantee
    3. too many additional points of failure (now if ither google or your internet connection is down you can do nothing)
    4. (from here) all your data ends up hosted in another country. Meaning the host is not bound by the same privacy laws as you are, which could cause you to be technically non compliant.

    And why I personally don't use google apps:

    1. Most of the time my laptop is not connected to the internet when I'm using
    2. I run 64 bit Linux, for which there is no Google Gears.

    All this recent talk of Google wanting to unseat Windows and yet so many of thier products currently require you to be using Windows in order to get full functionality.

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  27. Job Security by deanston · · Score: 2, Insightful

    1). People debate the merits of different email systems as if none of their mail traffic ever goes outside of their firewall. The idea of internal message never leaking out is an illusion. 2). Company email maintenance is a big part of IT support. No manager will volunteer to give up that budget and personnel and lost of IT jobs. It's not user inertia. It is in-house IT inertia. 3) I haven't used MS Office for 3 years. Nobody in my office knows the difference in documents I create. 4) I've found Gmail faster and more responsive and have better uptime than my company's own corporate mail. 4) Since maintaining email and email data has become so expensive, my organization has severely limited the server storage capacity of each user - much less than Gmail. To ensure you do not lose your important messages and data our IT recommend you BACK UP THE MESSAGES ON YOUR OWN IN YOUR PC to save server room. Are you kidding me? Is this 2009 or 1999? Forget data security and backup issue on my desktop for a minute. It is not worth my time and I think it is a ridiculous use of my time at my hourly rate when there are other project priorities and deadlines. 5) Using email as part of your project workflow is just plain wrong. Any important notes and work orders should be in a real project management system. 6) Outlook is the principle carrier of viruses. 7) If your organization cannot keep an Internet line up 99.99% of the time in this day and age, you've got bigger underlying fundamental problems than just email and local apps.