Understanding What Google Apps Is (And Isn't)
The search giant says its Google Apps is a supplement, not a replacement, to Microsoft Office, aimed at helping users collaborate online. What remains to be seen is whether Google's efforts to strengthen the security of web-hosted Google Apps will win the confidence of nervous IT departments.
Seeing as Google products work best online, the company has turned more of its attention to encouraging the ubiquity of wireless technology. It bid $4.6 billion in the FCC's 700 MhZ wireless auction, only to withdraw after making sure the rules required that the winner be open to all devices and accompanying applications (Google Apps anyone?).
The Consumer Consumes the Enterprise
It should seem appropriate that Gmail and later its accompanying Google Apps started as online tools for consumers. After all, Google philosophically has built its search business on the collective intelligence of Web users: if a website page is popular and relevant, Google recognizes it and presents it up high in its search results.
While Google does face the challenges voiced by what analysts describe as IT departments worried about their enterprise data being stored alongside consumer data, Google views its straddling of the enterprise and consumer spaces as a competitive advantage.
Girouard says he talks a lot about this subject with Google founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin, and describes it as a quest for technological relevance in modern life.
"I spend more time with Larry and Sergey on that topic than anything else: how do you make technology that recognizes that we are consumers and workers all in one person?" Girouard says. "How can I recognize that my life has become increasingly blended? I should have one calendar because I only have one day. What's the point of having separate calendars? I should have one unified view of my life."
Google has been particularly successful in this "blending" with iGoogle, a personalized portal where, using Google Gadgets, people can add widgets that blend both their consumer and enterprise diets. For instance, they might have one widget that displays documents they are editing with colleagues along side another widget displaying YouTube video or New York Times headlines.
"Getting this right for the user will be incredibly valuable," Girouard says. "We're in a unique position to do that because it's hard for either a pure enterprise company to do that and it's hard for a company that's all in the consumer world to do it."
