Decalogue Microsoft against Google Apps >> The request for Mauro L.
few weeks ago, January 21, 2010, the
Baths Srl of Rome has invited me to talk about applications of Google: the Google Apps. For the conference / workshop, I prepared a presentation in Google Docs, which I posted on the Internet and used to hold the thread: Recipe
crisis: two friends, a Mac and Google Apps .
The photo next to it, kindly sent by one of these, show me during the conference, with the prsentazione on your screen and try to return a concept with helping hands.
L. Mauro, who attended the conference, wrote an email to the organizers of the event, which I have submitted.
"to the seminar you have done on Google Apps, I send an annex where Microsoft explains the 10 reasons to avoid the Google Apps.
await your opinion on the matter. Thank you. "
answer with pleasure at the request of L. Mauro. Because I think his request and my notes may be of interest to others, I wrote this post. I hope I do not want to.
>> What are the Google Apps
not take anything for granted. What are the Apps, that is, applications, Google?
Google was born and raised as a search engine information on the Internet, becoming the first search engine in the world. But it is only a search engine. Google has developed an application based on the maps to help travelers, That's how Google Maps, used by many of us. For several years, Google is developing Google Apps, that is a whole battery of productivity applications for office work.
The Google Apps is a set of applications designed to enhance collaboration between people in the digital communication and working life. GMail used to communicate through the use of e-mail. Google Calendar lets you publish on the Internet, public and private calendars. Google Docs supports the sharing of text documents, spreadsheets and presentations. Google Talk enables you to chat and talk over the phone. And so on.
The common feature of all these applications is everything is on the Internet, on Google's servers. Both applications and the documents are on the 'network cloud' (cloud computing). To gain access to applications and documents you need is:
1. any computer connected to the Internet,
2. a browser such as Firefox, Internet Explorer, Safari, etc..
and 3. a record (account) with Google.
It travels very light. There is no doubt about what might be the latest copy of the document we're working with others is the copy that is on the server.
>> Cave Google Apps: Microsoft
the context of the Ten Commandments in front of the houses of the ancient Romans had sometimes put up a notice: "Cave Canem", that is, beware of dog. The Decalogue of Microsoft is a warning to be wary of Google Apps. Here is the story of the Decalogue.
In September 2007, two and a half years ago, Microsoft did get a note to a journalist of a manager on Google Apps. The email contained the ten critical of Microsoft in the adoption of Google Apps Premier Edition by large businesses, enterprise customers called in the English definition.
The Premier Edition of Google Apps are paid versions of Google Apps. The formula is simple: a subscription of fifty dollars per year per user.
The statement is posted on the unofficial Microsoft blog
Mary Jo Foley , journalist who had received the information.
The context of the so-called Decalogue is marked by the news media came a few hours before the signing of an agreement between Google and Capgemini for the marketing and sale of Google Apps to enterprise customers.
CapGemini, according to Wikipedia, is one of the largest information and communications. The company has its headquarters in Paris and has a population of ninety thousand dipedenti around the globe. Microsoft has about ninety-three thousand employees are spread across a hundred countries. CapGemini and Microsoft have almost the same number of employees. Google has far fewer employees than the other two companies. There are about twenty thousand.
was quite clear in 2007 that the agreement between Google and CapGemini Google Apps would allow it to penetrate the market sector of large enterprises. Hence the concern of the Microsoft. But where is the blessed
Decalogue? Here is the Decalogue, point by point and my comment.
>> Step One.
Manager Microsoft: Google says it has many users in the enterprise market. But those are really the ones who use their applications in the enterprise? Mig: Microsoft seems to suggest that even if top management buy licenses for Google Apps Permier Edition, in reality, their employees were so dissatisfied with the applications not to use them. Boh! I do not know what data is based on the affirmation / suggestion in the Microsoft.
My experience tells me however that many users of Microsoft Office using a minor part in the package. My experience is consistent with the so-called rule of twenty and eighty. Eighty percent of users of Microsoft Office will use twenty percent of the functions of the program.
>> Step two
Manager Microsoft: Google has a tradition of creating products incomplete, called Beta. Beta version upgrades are based solely on an agenda determined by Google and not shared with leaders of other holdings. Mig: It 's just that using them we realize that the products are complete or incomplete. I happen to use applications, presented as final versions and run in haste on the market only for commercial reasons. Then I discovered that they had serious defects.
One of the things I liked less than Office 2000, the package on which I am certified as an instructor Microsoft, were the blocks of programs, so-called crash. Word, Excel, PowerPoint just nailed it and he often loses the job done. Sometimes you had to restart the whole computer. With Microsoft Office XP, the final release, came the news that, for each block, left an automated program that tries to retrieve the data. To me, this news did not seem so great. I thought that simple programs - word processing, spreadsheet, presentation - should have been so stable as to have so few crashes, that you'd be able to remember them. And so I started using OpenOffice, which had very few crashes.
We must not stop at the titles of the boxes. You have to look what's inside. An application under the name Beta can be good and more robust version (release) presented as definitive.
The Microsoft executive also seems to criticize Google for the limited cooperation with client firms. Even here I do not know what it's talking about. Microsoft, however, might have good relations with its partners? Based on my experience, the fundamental spirit of Microsoft seemed, at least until 2005, with great avidity. The only really had to earn more, and only her. So maybe I missed something in the last five years. In the unofficial release of 2007, the Microsoft executive points out with pride "growth over the previous year, 43% of the ecosystem of partners working on the Office platform." I do not know how to interpret this phrase, but I doubt that outside the Microsoft ecosystem has won 43% of what he has earned the Microsoft Office package in 2007.
Of course, I had some signal, over the years, some free feature on its customers and partners. But not much. As for the burden-sharing with partners and honors and customers, have convinced me a lot more companies like Macromedia and Adobe (who bought Macromedia a few years ago). For this, among other things, I am certified by Adobe, becoming an Adobe Certified Expert.
>> Step Three
Manager Microsoft: Google stresses the low cost of their applications. Not only the price would be low, but its Google Apps would not need hardware, space for storage of data and even maintenance costs.
But if the Google Apps are a complement to Microsoft Office, increasing costs for companies, because they now have two systems of information technology to manage and maintain. This does not lead to higher costs and an increased complexity? Mig: One of the advantages of Google, perhaps the main one, is to reverse the usual way of doing things. It 'a Copernican revolution. The Christian church asserted that the sun revolved around the earth. Copernicus studied, understood, and proved that the earth revolves around the sun.
The normal practice with computers is still to have almost everything on the computer (your personal or company) and anything on the Internet. With Google Apps is the exact opposite: you have almost everything and anything on the Internet on your computer (or your company).
remember mathematical concepts? This new theory has, as corollaries, a series of cost savings. The computer does not need to be brand new, just having a good browser (Firefox, Internet Explorer, Safari, and why not?, Google Chrome). The costs associated with application upgrades are cut. No need to install a new version of the application, because we think Google to amend the application on its servers and the end user if he finds it ready when they open the browser. There are, above all, the additional costs and bottlenecks that normally the companies pay to implement its collaboration features. With Google Apps do not need a server system for sharing documents. Nor is it necessary to have the Exchange server or SharePoint Payment System on the Microsoft. No need to install spam filters on the server system, because the Gmail already come clean from spam. This is not the usual old story feel more "To solve this problem, we must wait to pass your system administrator or specialist that controls the server."
The Microsoft executive highlights another point, interesting and important
"if the Google Apps are a complement to Microsoft Office, increasing the costs for companies."
In fact, Google Apps are somehow dependent on other applications, however, not only from Microsoft Office. The Google Apps and OpenOffice also depend on Adobe and also ... by anyone.
For example, if I created a spreadsheet on the Internet with Google Docs, I can download it (download) on my computer in the following formats: Microsoft Excel, OpenOffice, PDF, HTML and TXT also pure. I can also install Google Gears on my computer to work offline. If next to the Google Apps package free OpenOffice costs do not increase much.
As for more complex as two different systems, I do not think that is big enough to worry about. There may be too complex even in a single integrated system, where everything from the operating system the database is done by the same company, as a sort of fake world, like in the movie Truman Show. Try to solve problems through application Microsoft Office Assistant. I tried with Windows 96, Windows 2000, Windows XP, Office 1997, Office 2000 and Office XP. The time I wasted looking for a solution was ten times what I made as an aid.
But the main point is that, increasingly, we live using various applications. Operating system, Microsoft Windows XP have the first choice and maybe Ubuntu Linux as second. Or, in the world thanks to Apple and Intel, we have Snow Leopard Mac as their first choice, and Microsoft Windows Vista as a second. As a package of office applications and also have Microsoft Office or OpenOffice NeoOffice. Often we have two email addresses, one for work and other personnel. And often we work on email a bit 'on the server and a bit' downloading mail on our computer, with Microsoft Outllook, Mail or Mozilla Thunderbird. And then we have to work one or more dedicated applications, which we use for our business sector. We are immersed in the diversity and complexity and we are grateful to those who help us find the right mix of applications that allows us to do things easily that we need, from publishing a picture in black and white to finish a project within six hands the expiry date.
>> Step Four
Microsoft executive: The main effort on Google's paid advertising in research on the Internet. Interest in the sector and enterprise applications for office productivity affects only one percent of company revenues. What will happen if things go bad for Google Apps? Close the area saw the little gain? Customers should not trust that this could happen? Mig: The idea, a little 'poisonous, suggested by this point is that Google might just one day, close the field of applications for productivity of office work. My impression is that Google has entered into this field to stay. Since 2007, Google Apps has been improved, even in some areas reported by Decalogue Microsoft (see Section Six).
>> Step Five
Manager Microsoft: The Google Apps work only if a large company has not experienced users (power users), employees are always online, the company itself did not build custom office applications.
These limits help make Google Apps for only a marginal percentage of workers who use the global information technology. Comparing functionality with features, it is not surprising that Microsoft is the leading sector dl. Mig: When you still have the largest market share in a sector, you can cry to the wind in eighty ways, but that does not show the leadership that you'll still have tomorrow, nor that Your products are still the best. This is especially true when you've lived, for your merits and limits of others, a state monopoly or near monopoly. That is exactly what has happened to Microsoft in operating systems and office productivity packages.
And we get to the characteristics of the products. The Google Apps to work only in companies without experienced users, that is, without that twenty percent of Office users that uses eighty percent of the package. But where is the problem? If there is a twenty per cent of employees who use Microsoft Office applications well, management will buy licenses for Microsoft Office that twenty percent and licenses for Google Apps remaining eighty percent. Save it for sure. The
Gogle Apps would work only if people were always in line. It is not true. See the answer to step three. If you need to work offline, you can download a file from the server to your computer and continue to work with Google Gears, a Microsoft Office and even OpenOffice.
The Google Apps does not have space in companies with customized office applications. I do not know if I have understood what is meant. I know for certain that an employee of the administration which is a monster with Excel spreadsheets with pivot tables and macros must be protected like a jewel. If its macro can migrate somewhere, quietly, you do so. If he does not like to migrate, they bought the his license to Microsoft Office.
Not all soldiers in an infantry unit are equipped with a heavy machine gun, and not all employees of a company should be forced to use Microsoft Office.
>> Step six
Manager Microsoft: The Google Apps does not have essential functions such as those that allow you to create headers, footers, indexes (which today we have to call summaries, ed), notes, footnotes, and so on.
Moreover, while users can collaborate on documents elementary, to develop a comprehensive document, the company must employ a process in two steps: to work together with Google Apps on a basic version of the document, then save in Word or Excel and then send the document by e-mail for final changes. Certainly the cost of the license for Google Apps is just $ 50, but with the inefficiencies created, what is the real cost? Mig: The image shown here, taken from this text I am writing with Google Docs, Google shows that both arrived in the area of \u200b\u200boffice productivity to stay and what are the improvements made in 'last year and a half. The function keys circled in red are: Footnotes page (footnotes), headers (header); footer (footer); TOC (Table of contents).
the need for two-step procedure, one on the other Google Apps and Microsoft Word (or OpenOffice Writer) I am not sure. Nor do I believe that switching from one system to create a disaster.
My curiosity goes up another point. I spent a lot of time and effort to teach users the procedure for Microsoft digital collaboration in the writing of documents, the famous feature revisions. The procedure for Google Apps, with the master document on the server, it is much more direct and immediate, but initially put at ease. One could compare the two procedures? What do you discover?
>> Step seven
Manager Microsoft: Large companies must constantly worry about the government regulation and standards. While Google can store a wealth of data on its servers, there is no easy way to enable enterprises to regularly delete their data, legal way to block the delivery of any document or make copies for the company. What happens if a company must have the documents to respond to governmental control agencies? Google also highlights
99.9% of operation for its applications, but few people understand that this guarantee only applies to GMail. Alarmed that the definition of block (downtime) made by Google, so the block would consist of at least ten consecutive minutes of non-functioning. What would it cost to company a block of seven minutes an hour, if repeated for each hour of a day? Mig: If an individual or company does not want something to go into alien hands, just not to be published on Google. But in this case, perhaps it is also wrong in your computer permanently. The best thing, I think, is to have critical information on a USB key. In general, for important documents, you can take the steps to make a copy to store on your computer or company servers.
not know if it is so critical, except for special cases, the percentage of operation (uptime) of Google applications.
>>
Manager Microsoft Point eight: In the business world, it is always on and always connected. Therefore have access to technical support 24 hours a day, seven days a week is essential.
If a company installs the Google Apps and there is a problem at eight in the evening, no service. The technical support of Google operates from Monday to Friday from one of the morning at six o'clock in the afternoon, Pacific Time (PST, Pacific Standard Time). These are the new hours of global trade? And if the administrator assigned to a customer is not available, the work he does, it stops? Mig: Maybe Microsoft is right, but I can not confirm because I have direct experience in the operation of assistance Google. Even Microsoft have little knowledge of the assistance. When I had trouble with the installation of Windows XP because I called the service, the price of the product, were included three requests for help. They seemed so far away from my problems (and their flaws) that I have not disturbed any more. I bought a kind of bible on Windows XP and I've gotten alone.
>> Number nine
Manager Microsoft: Google says that enterprise users are using only 10% of the functionality of existing applications for office productivity, which seems to mean that each employee must use the same 10% functionality. Instead it
clear that in every company there are specific roles that require the use of specific functions and information. How Google deals with the needs of these specific roles? Mig: On many issues, the Google Apps are, for now, the most essential and perhaps even cruder than Microsoft Office or OpenOffice. But I have my doubts about many of the general features contained in Microsoft Office suite applications.
repeat a concept already expressed. If there is an experienced user (power user) who knows how to use Word, Excel or Outlook let him continue with the Microsoft Office package. In the words of the Mastercard advertising, for all other ... There are Google Apps, maybe integrated with OpenOffice.
>> ten point
Manager Microsoft: With Google Apps in perpetual beta and Google alone decides when and how to introduce specific functionality, customers have little or no control on the characteristics and timing of updates .
In particular:
1. how can I do strategic planning and management training?
2. How can I get the features that I specifically requested? How much will it cost to acquire this knowledge? Mig: I have some idea of \u200b\u200bhow Microsoft collects the views of users and their heads up Microsoft Office. Google has an edge over Microsoft in gather information about using Google Apps. Since the Google Apps
work primarily on the Internet, Google can measure how every aspect of their applications being used by users. And no one better than Google knows how to measure every click that users make on the Internet.
As for the Microsoft or Google take into account the opinions of its users do not know.
*** nb the bike is divided into three segments has been immortalized, last Saturday, February 13 in Rome, when the snow fell
