Analysts wonder if the web-based productivity software can truly crack the enterprise shell, hardened by a decade or more of Microsoft Office reliance, despite yesterday's announcement that Salesforce.com would offer Google Apps to all customers free of charge. Yesterday’s announcement that Salesforce.com would provide Google Apps for free to its customers sparked off a debate among analysts about whether Google’s web-based software can make inroads with large businesses, and specifically the Fortune 500.RELATED LINKS Analysis: Salesforce’s Addition of Google Apps Shows Google’s Intent to Enter Business Software Market Analysis: Microsoft Buys into the Cloud Analysis: Microsoft Releases Office Live in Public Beta, But Still Requires Users to Work Offline Until now, Google primarily has worked with small and medium businesses looking to capitalize on Google Apps’ low cost (the enterprise edition rings in at $50 per user per year) and its ability to enable people to collaborate in real-time on documents. Gaining large enterprise adoption, however, hasn’t necessarily materialized. Microsoft still dominates the productivity space. According to Techcrunch, Microsoft made $16 billion from Office in 2007. Google Apps, conversely, made about $400 million, only accounting for a small fraction of Google’s overall revenue. On the customer page of the Google Apps website, the chief technology officer of General Electric (GE) is quoted as saying the company is considering using the web-based software, and Procter & Gamble Business Services has enrolled as charter member. But analysts such as the Burton Group’s Guy Creese says Google Apps hasn’t caught on yet in the Fortune 500 . “Because Google Apps came out of the consumer space, there’s a bunch of things missing [for enterprises],” says Creese, who also wrote a report pondering if adopting Google Apps could be “career limiting” move for IT leaders in the enterprise space. Among the primary features Google Apps fails to have in its portfolio, Creese notes, are sufficient offline functionality and records management for documents. While Google addressed the offline problem for its documents and spreadsheets last week, a similar function has not followed for its enterprise Gmail. During a question and answer session after the companies unveiled their newest partnership at the Four Seasons hotel in San Francisco yesterday, Dave Girouard, vice president and general manager of Google Enterprise, and Salesforce.com CEO Marc Benioff noted that the issue becomes less relevant as the ubiquity of wireless and other connections to the Internet continue to envelop the world. But even if companies can get over the offline issue, the adoption of Google Apps could be a cultural challenge as much as technological one. Microsoft’s technology has pervaded the enterprise space for so long that many IT managers, as well as regular users of the Office software, have difficulty seeing how they could get off of it. “Office is woven into line of business applications [in the enterprise],” says Tom Austin, a Gartner audience. Austin noted another problem IT departments at large enterprises at a session on cloud computing last week at the Gartner conference in Las Vegas: it doesn’t offer a road map for IT departments. That’s something enterprises crave. “Does anyone get a road map from Google?” Austin asked the audience. “No. For every application Google offers, there’s a blog with it. Go read the blog, they say, and you’ll see what new features we offer. You’d never accept this from a mainline vendor.” Salesforce.com, on the other hand, has become a trusted, mainline vendor, says Rebecca Wettemann, a vice president and analyst with Nucleus Research. She notes that Salesforce.com has become successful at selling enterprise software “in the cloud.” Google even somewhat conceded that it considered this street creditability in the partnership. “Salesforce.com has a lot of credibility in the market, and they’ve proven themselves over many years,” Scott McMullan, lead partner at Google Enterprise, told CIO last week. “We’ve been out there more recently, and we’re still getting out our story.” Related content feature 10 most popular IT certifications for 2023 Certifications are a great way to show employers you have the right IT skills and specializations for the job. These 10 certs are the ones IT pros are most likely to pursue, according to data from Dice. By Sarah K. White May 26, 2023 8 mins Certifications Careers interview Stepping up to the challenge of a global conglomerate CIO role Dr. Amrut Urkude became CIO of Reliance Polyester after his company was acquired by Reliance Industries. He discusses challenges IT leaders face while transitioning from a small company to a large multinational enterprise, and how to overcome them. By Yashvendra Singh May 26, 2023 7 mins Digital Transformation Careers brandpost With the new financial year looming, now is a good time to review your Microsoft 365 licenses By Veronica Lew May 25, 2023 5 mins Lenovo news Alteryx works in generative AI for speedy analytics results OpenAI integration and AI wizardry for report generation are aimed at making Alteryx’s analytics products more accessible. By Jon Gold May 25, 2023 3 mins Analytics Podcasts Videos Resources Events SUBSCRIBE TO OUR NEWSLETTER From our editors straight to your inbox Get started by entering your email address below. Please enter a valid email address Subscribe