Google and Capgemini just doesn't add up

I suspect a lot of the buzz generated by Google's initiative to deliver online applications to the enterprise stems from a gut feel that software, along with all the IT infrastructure and professional services that surround it, simply costs too much.

So when Capgemini comes along and says it's going to support Google Apps Premier Edition (GAPE) as part of its desktop outsourcing play, it simply doesn't add up. Google Apps is part of a fresh, new wave that's going to blow away all those high-cost, consulting-laden IT rollouts. Isn't it?

Except that ... enterprises don't understand this web-based SaaS model. There's no established best practice for buying it, implementing it, governing and managing it. Capgemini brings respectability, packages it into a model that enterprises can deal with. In doing so, GAPE becomes a little more mainstream, a little less threatening.

Trouble is, if you're the kind of enterprise that wants mainstream and unthreatening, then you're going to stick with Microsoft, thank you very much. And if you're the kind of business manager that's deploying GAPE to escape the oppressive confines of the enterprise IT infrastructure, then the last thing you want is to have it all smothered in consultant goo.

So I don't think GAPE's buyers are going to go for the Capgemini proposition. And I don't think Capgemini's customers are going to buy GAPE. But even if it changes nothing, both vendors get to look good from doing the announcement, so everyone's happy.