Google displaces Microsoft, already
Who says we can all get along? Not Google, any more.
I have been putting forth Google Enterprise's real feelings towards Microsoft since last November when I spent several hours at the New York City Googleplex and heard Michael Lock, Director of North American Sales for Google Enterprise, energize the Google Enterprise troops for "Death to the (Microsoft) hierarchy! (see ""Google Enterprise strategy: ‘Death to the hierarchy’".")
In an effort to spur adoption of its just launched Google Apps "substitute" for Microsoft Office, Kevin Gough, product manager, Google Enterprise touts "Google Apps replaced Microsoft Office at 100,000 businesses," as cited by iTWire:
They’ve already switched their entire infrastructure over to Google Apps. We have just released the Premier Edition of Google Apps today and today we already have GE, Procter & Gamble, Prudential and Loreal. If on the first day of the launch we have two of the top 25 companies in the world. Imagine what’s going to happen in a month or a year from now.
In announcing the official launch of Google Apps Premier yesterday, I put forth Google's confidence it can translate the massive Google “love” Google.com enjoys into Google love in the enterprise (see "Google vs. Microsoft: David and Goliath?").
I heard Lock underscore at the Googleplex that "Google is a different kind of technology company, we build technology products that people love, not that they have to use.”
Google’s Enterprise Solutions strategy is to introduce products that “look like consumer applications being used in personal lives” within the organization. Google’s core search product and user experience informs Google’s Enterprise search products.
The Google Apps Premier philosophy is to take the Google Internet search paradigm and Gmail functionality and bring it into the enterprise, to displace the Microsoft productivity desktop.
GOUGH: It happens that most people are choosing to work in an online environment, a collaborative environment, an environment that has a user interface that they know, with a familiar interface with search in the center. They are choosing to use Google Apps because they’ve seen how easy to use they are and how productive they can be at home. So they’re saying why can’t they bring Google into the workplace and have those same benefits and usability.
Really what we did was pick that the email inbox is the hub of a productivity tool and with Google Apps that’s what we’ve focussed on optimising. Things that you can do from the inbox are different - things like in-browser instant messaging to quickly contact a colleague without having to pick up the phone or wait for an email.
The ability to have that kind of central hub for all your information with search in the center is the key. Search really is the key because when project teams form and disband you don’t want to lose the knowledge and intellectual property they’ve created. The best way to access that is the search interface because everyone knows how to search.
Everyone knows how to search at number one search engine Google, that is.
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ALSO: GOOGLE GMAIL SLA GUARANTEE? and GOOGLE vs. MICROSOFT: DAVID and GOLIATH? and HOW GOOGLE'S NEW BUSINESS MODEL HURTS GOOG