Google to release free business software

Published on August 27th, 2006

I hope they give Microsoft a run for their money.

Starting Monday, Google will offer Google Apps for Your Domain, a free package of programs for businesses, universities and other organizations.

Workers will be able to send e-mail with Gmail, Google’s two-year-old Web-based mail service, but messages will carry their company’s domain name. The package also includes Google’s online calendar, instant-messaging service, and Page Creator, a Web page builder.

Information technology administrators can make some customizations. “But really, the applications are exactly what you’d experience as a consumer if you use them,” said Dave Girouard, VP and general manager of Google Enterprise, a division of Google Inc.

The question is, will Google become the new monopolists?

17 users responded in " Google to release free business software "

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# 1 gquaglia said, on August 27th, 2006 at 5:41 pm

Steve Ballmer must be having a fit right now. So much for crushing them, eh Steve? As long as Google keeps providing great, free services like gmail and Google calendar, M$ is toast. I long abandoned Outhouse in favor of Google’s aps. Just another nail in the M$ “rape the consumer” business model.

# 2 Ben Franske said, on August 27th, 2006 at 6:17 pm

I don’t think so. This might get popular with the small buisness crowd but a real enterprise is more likely to want it all in house. It’s hard to explain to investors why your business ground to a halt when something burped at Google. Large businesses are wary of free software as it is, free business critical services are even more unlikely to become popular with big business.

# 3 dusan maletic said, on August 27th, 2006 at 6:27 pm

Only way MS will be crushed is the free OpenSource software. No sane company should adopt Google email and/or software for one simple reason: no privacy. Incompatible with the bussiness. Personally, I use email accounts from all three major free providers (to manage my Spam) Hotmail(MS), Yahoo and Google. I feel most vulnerable with the Google (not that the other two are much better). Piling-up all that info (and never actually deleting it even if user wants to!) will end up in catastrophy (seen AOL case recently?). Under no circumstance would I use those acounts for anything serious, nevermind any online software from the same source.

# 4 gquaglia said, on August 27th, 2006 at 6:46 pm

#2 and #3 spoken like true M$ loyalists. You monthy loyality check is in the mail. Oh wait, you owe us instead for our latest licensing scam, I mean program.

# 5 Uncle Jim said, on August 27th, 2006 at 7:27 pm

Everything they get into is competitive. They might end up with a monopoly in free services. Ebay just raised prices. They were hosting stores that people paid for, yet they weren’t profitable or profitable enough. A lot of stores closed. This new business model of giving away all sorts of services is interesting to watch. Google needs lots of users to look at ads, so the free services draw more user eyeballs. I believe it’s a limited thing. It costs money to run servers and power & cooling equipment, so the free services don’t pay these costs. The advertisers ultimately pay for the free services and they benefit along with Google from more traffic. It seems to be good all around. I wouldn’t adopt early. Wait for the reviews and see what problems develop. A whole lot of people will jump right in to the deep end and Google has a very deep deep end with no lifeguards. It’s a free swim with the sharks, so be careful. Most of you won’t.

# 6 Lindsay said, on August 27th, 2006 at 8:08 pm

(Portion of comment deleted)

Google mail is not even vaguely close to being a outlook replacement.

# 7 JimJammer said, on August 27th, 2006 at 8:24 pm

If you throw in Calendar, why isn’t gmail better. I access it using the Thunderbird client and use it along side my work outlook (which i have to use as it and Exchange are non-stanrdard’s based using MAPI rather than IMAP).

I much prefer thunderbird for email access – has a decent junk mail filter etc and is extendable. I hate outlook and how it locks me into the one computer.

Bring it Google, and force Msft into some innovation and product enhancement – they obviously can’t self-direct when they’re left in a monopolistic environment.

# 8 Ben Franske said, on August 27th, 2006 at 8:45 pm

#4 as someone who is regularly accused of spouting too much anti-Microsoft speech I’ll look forward to that loyalty check. I’m a strong believer in open source and encourage businesses to use, develop and contribute to open source applications. I’m also someone with real business experience and unless there’s someone who you can get a real enterprise support contract from the bean counters and execs will never let it slide. Google might be in the position to offer such a contract but there’s no way it’s going to be free and taking critical services away from the local IT staff and turning them over to Google would be next to impossible.

There are a lot of good business reasons not to outsource something like this to a third party. I’m not saying some businesses won’t or that it won’t be popular in the small to medium size crowd; they will and it will be. I’m saying that no one is in the position to provide enterprise class services to big business for free, over the web. Between the security risks, the business risks and the legal risks it’s just not worth it to serious companies. This is not a Google vs. MS fight, plenty of businesses are using well supported open source or some other messaging/calendaring/web solutions.

# 9 GregAllen said, on August 27th, 2006 at 9:35 pm

I think it would be a mistake to go with Google, even for free.

This part smells to me:

>> The free edition of Apps for Your Domain is, like Google’s main site, supported with ads. By the end of the year, the company also plans to launch a paid version that will offer more storage, some degree of support, and likely, no ads. A price for this edition hasn’t been set.

Ads are unacceptable for our company — so this isn’t free.

As for “apps”, I’m pushing our company switch to Open Office. I’ve personally made the switch. I kept my licensed copies of MS Office installed for about a year and then deleted them. I don’t miss it at all.

# 10 scott said, on August 27th, 2006 at 10:52 pm

Give me a break. GMail, an online calendar, and a web page creator somehow replace Office?! And who really thinks all businesses want all their information being permanently stored by Google anyway?

This is a non-issue. Unless they vastly improve the suite of tools AND companies decide they don’t mind relying on the internet to get any work done, this type of thing is just an interesting side note to daily business life. If even that.

# 11 AC said, on August 28th, 2006 at 3:17 am

Reading one of the articles about google, came across a mention of ZOHO at http://www.zoho.com Looks pretty interesting as a business suite of apps. ‘ve tried most onlines such as thinkfree, writely, etc. I feel this may be the wave of the future – if we can ever get bandwidth acceptable!

# 12 Smartalix said, on August 28th, 2006 at 3:47 am

Ben,

Most business in America is small- and medium-sized business.

# 13 Uncle Jim said, on August 28th, 2006 at 6:15 am

Most big deals are a bunch of small and medium sized deals. A free wiki office platform for small business would be interesting. I don’t see this as MSFT vs. GOOG. Open Office is a good idea, so using it with a wiki for collaboration makes sense, plus you don’t have a mixture of ads involved in the process. I read about the AOL mess and was wondering if people really want to put all this data on a search based service like Google. The AOL situation just involved search data and look at the damage. Processing and storing all kinds of sensitive business data using a third party seems risky from a privacy point of view and you give up some control of your data. You get ads in exchange for free applications, when there are free applications with no ads, so why would you want the ads and what is the benefit? The old what’s in it for me will determine how useful something like this is. If you give up privacy to achieve security, you will end up with neither privacy or security.

# 14 James Hill said, on August 28th, 2006 at 6:26 am

Outlook is too engraned in big-business for Balmer to shed a tear about losing the low-profit small business racket.

# 15 Uncle Jim said, on August 28th, 2006 at 8:11 am

I just heard something about Google and Ebay doing something together. No details yet.

# 16 GregAllen said, on August 28th, 2006 at 10:15 pm

#13 >>A free wiki office platform for small business would be interesting. Open Office is a good idea, so using it with a wiki for collaboration makes sense,

I totally agree with what you say about wiki. It could be an excellent business tool… but even more for big corportions.

When I worked as Director of Information Services for about ten years, we spent endless hours revising and distributing manuals. Boring and tedious but very important work.

I wished I had a wiki system for the head-office staff to keep updated and then Palm Pilots to distribute them to global workers.

The global guys could synchronize their Palms weekly and have the current versions of all the manuals. What a savings in postage and paper!

Wiki would also be great for getting information from the field to the head office.

Regional staff could maintain a wiki about their departments, updating it on Friday afternoon. On Monday morning the CEO would have a comprehensive report just by surfing to the corporate wiki.

# 17 Mr. H. Fusion said, on August 29th, 2006 at 2:03 am

Perfect? Of course not.

Great idea? Sure is.

Along with other current Open Source software, this will hurt MS’s monopoly. Add to this the fact that as more and more get on the Open Source bandwagon, it will grow and become even more popular and practical. Confidential material will always need and use special treatment, but it doesn’t need to come from MS.

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