Is Microsoft being relegated to the background with Google hogging the lion’s share of the limelight? For example, Google confirmed last week it is testing a small-business bundle of its e-mail, calendaring, instant messaging and web-page creation services. Users of the new Google Apps For Your Domain will operate under their own domain name, but their e-mail, to-do lists and schedule will run in the Google cloud. A paid version will be available by year's end.
Google Apps for Your Domain is a set of hosted applications for organizations that want to provide high-quality communications tools to their users without the hassle of installing and maintaining software or hardware.
In addition to customizing the user interface with their own branding and colour scheme, organizations can tailor the service to their needs by mixing and matching the e-mail, messaging, calendaring and other tools offered through Google Apps for Your Domain.
Dave Girouard, vice president and general manager of Google's enterprise business, called the move a 'starting point' for Google in catering to business users.
As Google encroaches on the business software territory that Microsoft has traditionally dominated, Microsoft has responded by adding online services to its desktop software and beefing up its Web offerings, particularly in search services.
Last year, Microsoft announced Office Live, a Web service to help business employees collaborate on spreadsheets and other documents.
The competition with Microsoft could intensify if Google eventually adds its online spreadsheet and word-processing applications to its Apps bundle.
"We're trying to take a new look at what it means to collaborate," said Rajen Sheth, product manager for Google Apps for Your Domain. "There are obvious competitors out there, but I think people will see this as a fresh look."
The intent is to allow companies and organisations access to collaboration applications even if they can't afford internal IT support or don't want to devote IT resources to those tasks, with the aim of 'really driving down the cost and the maintenance', Glotzbach said.
Google will host the applications relieving companies of the need to maintain or install software on individual PCs; support tasks often more costly than software itself. "If we do it right, we get the best of both worlds; consumer-friendly software, but also low-cost business applications," said Dave Girouard, general manager of Google's enterprise division, which sells search software to companies.
Ever since the launch of Gmail, Google has collected feedback from small to medium-size businesses and universities, in particular, regarding that application and it has also been beta testing Gmail for Your Domain for a while. Google Apps for Your Domain is an extension of that, Glotzbach said.
Initial apps are Gmail web e-mail, the Google Talk instant message and Web phone-calling service, group scheduling on Google Calendar, and Google Page Creator for Web page design. "It really is intended to be a platform," Girouard said.
"One of the fundamental benefits of the software as service approach is that you can just turn on new features over time." The Writely word processor and Google Spreadsheet are candidates for future inclusion in Google Apps, Girouard said. Google is said to shortly add a number of other business-oriented applications to the suite, including its Writely word processor and Google Spreadsheets. Google is reportedly planning to prompt users who send Microsoft files by gmail to convert them into a google format so that they can be more easily shared across multiple users.
Google says it will offer a 'paid, premium' version, which includes the option of being ad-free, along with more administrative control and compliance features that meet the demands of bigger corporations and government agencies.
Jeff Raikes, president of Microsoft's business division, says that the company will release a product in 2007 called SharePoint which will allow easier sharing among online users as well.
This Web services bundle will compete with Microsoft Office Live, currently under development. Google is running hard in the latest anti-Microsoft movement, as ISVs—especially sales-force automation or CRM players offering marketing and lead-tracking functions—look to the search company to fill in capabilities they need but don't want to develop.
"Why create your own search and ad engine if you're Salesforce.com or NetSuite?" said Dana Gardner, principal analyst at Interarbor Solutions. "So who do you go to? The market leader who is also an Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) provider or to Microsoft? But why pay a competitor who's trying to kill you?"
Reliance on open source code runs deep among Google's developers, and the company uses open source in its production systems, too. A majority of Google's engineering desktops are Linux machines. They're typically loaded with tools such as the Free Software Foundation's Gnu C Compiler; Make, a Unix utility for assembling files into a C program; and Apache Ant, open source code for assembling Java applications from Java files. Google, with its Linux-based infrastructure, is not seen as a rival to the application players. At least not yet.
Last week, Salesforce.com CEO Marc Benioff spent nearly as much time touting Google's Writely application and spreadsheet offering as he did talking up Salesforce.com's new Google AdWords integration. Salesforce.com rival NetSuite likewise feted new Google AdWords tie-ins to its hosted marketing and CRM modules. VARs can use those linkages to help customers reap rewards of paid Internet searches and track the results from their dashboards.
Benioff said VARs should stick with the alternative stack and fast-delivering on-demand model. "That's fantastic news for ISVs, VARs and integrators who want to focus their energy and creativity on customer success, not the drudgery of break-fix-patch-upgrade with client/server," he said. "The [Microsoft] stack is stuck. Worst of all, the stack has stuck it to the customer."
Gregg Rosenberg, CEO of RICIS, an e-mail specialist in Tinley Park, Ill., said there are solid open-source business applications such as SugarCRM. The exception? "I don't see any rock-solid accounting applications out there for Linux, but that will change," he said.
George Brown, president of Database Solutions, Cherry Hill, N.J., said the alternate stack is an issue for Microsoft. "It's a threat because some people don't want all their eggs in a Microsoft basket."
On the other hand, Google has done little to calm fears that it does not know—or care about—channel partners. Microsoft was built on a partner model and has pledged to stay channel-focused. Google has made no such promises.
