With Google Apps, the idea of sharing, even with basic productivity tools, takes a front and center stage. With Google Docs, for instance, users edit and modify the document online and the changes happen in real time.

Google also recently added social software such as wikis to the Google Apps portfolio. Google Sites, as it's called, allows people in businesses to use the wiki technology (which Google originally acquired from a start-up vendor Jotspot) to build websites and intranets with no programming experience.

As all these tools get thrown into Gadgets, and moved across various applications, Sheth believes users can build their business and personal connections more efficiently.

The Google Way: Rapid Development and Release

Like older, more established vendors (think of IBM and Microsoft), Google does offer service level agreements and IT roadmaps (customers and partners must sign non-disclosure agreements to see the details). But Google differs in its approach to software development cycles from older vendors who make major application software changes every year or two. In the Google model, minor changes get made incrementally but happen with greater frequency.

"What we have the luxury to do as a cloud-based platform is to do things iteratively," Sheth says. "Many of our products have two- or four-week cycle increments."

That rapid development and release cycle may be good for Google, but it's not clear how IT departments will like that pace, says Tom Austin, a Gartner analyst, who notes that Microsoft and IBM will give detailed roadmaps that look a year or more into the future. "Google, on the other hand, will give a six month [roadmap] and they'll talk broadly about 'directions' after that," he says.

Austin notes that this is due to the fast pace of online software development and the fact that Google gets so much feedback from consumers using its products. Even so, Google has been cautious about what features it adds to Google Apps.

"I don't think they are aiming for perfection," Austin says. "They are aiming to avoid a big stinking mistake. They will iterate from release to release. They want to make sure they don't add something that's confusing and turns people off."

One other philosophical adjustment that enterprises must make: Google does just a bare minimum when it comes to offline functionality. While its Google Gears API yielded an offline mode to Google Docs & Spreadsheets back in April, an offline version of Gmail still doesn't exist for Google Apps users.