Sunday Summary of Google News

Here is our read of the NEWS about Google Apps. (With our comments of course!) Take the time to browse through the list of articles as well as read our comments.

Over at Computerworld the “IT Pros” are talking about the complexity of security, granular document control, group management, blah, blah, blah! Our take is the “IT Pros” miss the point because they either don’t understand the changing IT delivery model (the Internet as the computer) or they are creating “must have” demands simply to obscusificate the decision to consider solutions like Google Apps today vs. when “Google provide(s) stronger data models.” To us the arguments of “must haves” harkens back to the days of main-frame legacy IT dictators. Be your own judge but we think Computerworld is missing the point and offering red herring distractions to protect the current IT PC glass house organizations!

Computerworld New Zealand seems to understand the Google Apps model well in their article covering the need for SLAs (Service Level Agreements). SLAs are important components of mature Internet based software as service offerings. In the short run, for most business in the SMB range of things, living without an SLA from Google is no riskier than the current IT offerings they are consuming today. Notice the Gmail SLA of 99.9% … remember, OMBNexGen believes Gmail is where every business should be starting today!

Garrett Rogers writing for ZDNet may have it right that a Google Apps appliance may make Microsoft sweat but he is missing the point: No one wants anymore appliances! Lets repeat the OMBNexGen mantra, make the Internet your computer and get of the self supported IT infrastructure business! Besides Microsoft is too late in understanding the Google vision and model… Take a look at our next comment!

Dave Methvin of Information Week is one of many people (including us at OMBNexGen) who have been seriously disappointed by Microsoft’s attempt to respond to Google Apps with their Office Live Workspace. Talk about not getting it, Microsoft seems to be clueless, at least on the surface of what is in the Office Live Workspace offering, as to what Google is offering. Though we are not convinced that the Office Live Workspace product is not more of the Microsoft “stick model” for getting users to stutter in their decisions to move to non Microsoft solutions. (By the way the Microsoft “stick model” is the current and prevalent approach of throwing solutions and applications out to the world as a delay tactic while they try and move their enormous train just a little left of the tracks they are currently on.)