Google Takes Another Swipe at Microsoft's Enterprise

Google’s (GOOG) small but growing enterprise app business is now going for Microsoft’s (MSFT) jugular. At a press conference Tuesday (see Mike’s real-time notes), Google announced a new plug-in that will sync Google’s enterprise versions of Gmail, contacts, and calendar with Microsoft’s Outlook. In the enterprise, Outlook is still king and not everyone is ready to switch just yet to browser-based email, calendars and contact management.

So employees can continue to use Outlook if that is what they are comfortable with, and Google Apps will run on the backend. Google is claiming that its enterprise apps cost less than half of Microsoft Exchange (the server software that is paired with Outlook, where all the money is). The new syncing tool, Google App Sync, works only on Windows at this point and is only available for (paying) enterprise customers.

Steve Ballmer is not going to be happy about this.

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Comments

[LA Tech:]

For anyone who wants to run a real business with Google Apps, there is one question you need to pose to Google before signing the agreement.

What happens if Google, for one reason or ten thousand other reasons, loses any of your data.

Google will tell you they have never lost ANY customer data.

Google will NEVER give you a written SLA about their losing customer data.

NEVER EVER partner up with any firm that doesn't walk the walk.

Google chooses to talk the talk very well. My firm sells Postini and is trying to sell GoogleApps to the SMB market.

Jun 09 03:51 PM

[jack dee:]

My pet dog syncs with Outlook, in fact just about everyone who can does.

I am stunned to learn that goog did not have this already. My forty dollar player works with outlook.

Jun 09 04:04 PM

[Question...:]

I'll admit it... I love Outlook. I think this is a testament to the flexibility and value find in Office - Outlook in particular. I've been getting both my enterprise email and my consumer Hotmail in Outlook for quite a while, so my reaction to Gmail in Outlook is "what took so long?"

In fact, I can ship even ship FedEx packages in Outlook. Even beyond email and calendar, it's a fabulous tool... it connects to SharePoint and is easily custumizable to include LOB data and workflows.

BTW: Folks who like their Exchange email but want a low cost cloud version can **try it free** here: www.microsoft.com/onli... ... and get SharePoint collaboration, web conferencing, and enterprise-grade IM, as well.

Jun 09 04:19 PM

[Question...:]

I should add... Microsoft offers financially-backed SLAs for their Cloud email and productivity services (unlike Google).


On Jun 09 04:19 PM Question... wrote:

> I'll admit it... I love Outlook. I think this is a testament to the
> flexibility and value find in Office - Outlook in particular. I've
> been getting both my enterprise email and my consumer Hotmail in
> Outlook for quite a while, so my reaction to Gmail in Outlook is
> "what took so long?"
>
> In fact, I can ship even ship FedEx packages in Outlook. Even beyond
> email and calendar, it's a fabulous tool... it connects to SharePoint
> and is easily custumizable to include LOB data and workflows. <br/>
>
> BTW: Folks who like their Exchange email but want a low cost cloud
> version can **try it free** here: www.microsoft.com/onli...
> ... and get SharePoint collaboration, web conferencing, and enterprise-grade
> IM, as well.

Jun 09 04:22 PM

[Josh B Thom...:]

You should have also added: Do not buy Microsoft Word just have everyone use WordPad. It comes with Windows anyway.

Jun 09 06:40 PM

[Gabe Faraone:]

Google (GOOG) enterprise sync offering is a hybrid game changer. Mid-market companies that feel the legacy chains of outlook now have a clear, simple path to migrate to the cloud. One the surface, looks stronger than Microsoft's (MSFT) Live offering.

Google apps are maturing nicely and compare well with 70%+ of the Microsoft Office features. Google lives in the cloud - Microsoft is still trying to find the cloud.

Jun 10 09:21 AM