September 11, 2007 | Tuesday

Google Ready to go Corporate

By Jon Myers, Director Of Search  in News |Search Engines |Google |Microsoft

Google has been quietly creating a suite of products they are now collectively calling ‘Google Apps’ software. Google hopes to drive into the market of spreadsheets and word processing where corporations have had a long-time love of Microsoft Office.

Over the last year or so as Google Apps was assembled as a product offering people compared it closely to Microsoft’s offering whereas Google constantly positioned it as an online document sharing system rather than a desktop offering.

Google is stating it on the Google Apps online page as the headline for the products: “Want simple, powerful communication and collaboration tools for your organisation without the usual hassle and cost?” Which over all gives you a sense for how they will take the offering and pitch it to the market place.

That theory will take a small step toward reality soon, but the fight for corporate desktop share looks like it will start in Europe. The Guardian has reported that CapGemini will promote Google Apps to its customer base in a recent article:

“Microsoft is an important partner to us as is IBM,” said the head of partnerships at CapGemini’s outsourcing business, Richard Payling. “In our client base we have a mix of Microsoft users and Lotus Notes users and we now have our first Google Apps user. But CapGemini is all about freedom, giving clients choice of the most appropriate technology that is going to fit their business environment.”
“If you look at the traditional desktop it is very focused on personal productivity,” said Robert Whiteside, Google enterprise manager, UK and Ireland. “What Google Apps brings is team productivity.”

Google Apps also removes something from the usual software environment namely the expensive licensing fees. Companies will be charged by CapGemini the $50 per-person annual license fee, which will bring significant savings on Microsoft client licenses.

Google can never take Microsoft away from the desktop entirely. Microsoft’s software has become too established in the marketplace. Google Apps will find a place on the desktops media users and companies needing multi user capabilities rather than executive types who live for Microsoft applications. But you never know when you look at the cost saving opportunities.

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