You must all be aware of the comedy of errors of the L.A. City Council Google Apps implementation. It is a classical egg on face story, which started with LA and Google showcasing it as a model implementation, where both would march into the gilded world of the cloud hand in hand with their head held high, help improve productivity, and save costs at that.
The happily ever after never happened.
I just came across an article on Information Week titled Can Google+ Become A Biz Collaboration Tool?. This discussion has been going around for a while, and my reaction was…
ARGHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH
Backupify, a provider of web based backup services for social networks and web apps, has just released an infographic on the top reasons for Google Apps data loss. The report tracks and consolidates a 100 data loss incidents on Google forums.
The top culprit for data loss is overwhelmingly user error, accounting for 63%. Trailing by a long way, the next leading cause was hacking, while 3% were accounted for by third party apps corrputing Google Apps (which ones?). In all cases, it was found that the data was irrecoverable after 5 days. Check out the infographic below:
Offline access has been the top requested Google Apps feature for quite some time now, especially after Google withdrew offline access through Google Gears last year to concentrate on HTML5 based technology. Finally, the promised offline access capability has been announced by Google. Offline Gmail access is available through a web app in the Chrome Web Store, and offline access to Google Calendars and Docs is seamlessly available through the same interfaces even if the net connection is off.
However, as Microsoft was quick to point out, offline access capabilities are severely limited. For one, offline Gmail access is a stripped down version of regular Gmail, and is accessible only through a specific version of Chrome used by less than 2% of browser users. On the other hand, users only get read only access to Google Docs online.
Microsoft went one up on Google Apps with a Gmail spoof video which has been doing the rounds. Titled the "Gmail" man, depicting a snoopy postman who likes to read people's mail, Microsoft has targeted Google's policy of scanning Gmail users mail to serve up relevant ads. Microsoft has kept mum about producing the video, but it is quite obvious to most that it is an MS production.
The video is very witty, and certainly worth a watch. Everyone is waiting with bated breath to see how Google responds. It did its own "Gmail intervention" video, but that is limp, and doesnt seem to be a direct response. See the video below and get a few chuckles.
One sometimes needs to take a step back to get a clearer perspective of things. Till a few years back, Microsoft wouldn't so much as acknowledge Google's existence in the enterprise space. Now it has a page up on its main site, painstakingly explaining how Office 365 is better than Google Apps.
Just when you thought that the business application market, where everything from social networking, to intranets, to document management, to email, to project management, to solutions-you-can't-make-or-tail-of are sold under the banner of "collaboration", couldn't get any more complex, Apple launched iCloud.
iCloud syncs all your information between your Apple devices and the web, quite seamlessly – email, contacts, calendars, documents, music, pictures or any other. Steve Jobs attempt to hook you to the Apple environment.
One cant help but giggle in glee when the gorillas of tech, Google and Microsoft, fight it out. It is THE tech battle of our times. The fights have been growing particularly vicious over the last month around the time Microsoft released the public beta of Office 365, the rebranded version of BPOS, its online communication and collaboration suite. Although Google does not have a substantial presence in the business market yet with Google Apps, Microsoft sees it as a big threat in the future, which explains its recent attempts to thump down Google's products.
Punch 1) Microsoft accuses Google of lying about Apps for government. This can be seen as Microsoft's revenge for the Google Apps suit last year, where it sued the Department of Interior for allegedly giving Microsoft an unfair advantage in its bidding process. Google went on to win an injuction in that suit. One of Google's points was that Microsoft's solution lacked FISMA, the security certification required the government for government contracts. Waiting for a chance to bite back, earlier this month, Microsoft accused Google of lying about having FISMA for its Google Apps for Government.
Recently, the blogosphere was all abuzz about a Gmail bug deleting the data of .08%, wait, 0.2% of its users. The data didn't remain deleted forever, as for all its techno prowess, Google had also conservatively kept a physical backup of the data on tapes. But recovery was slow and painstaking, and it took Google 4 lumbering days to restore the data (disaster in business terms!).
Since public memory is short, the Google Bee felt it was a good time to dig up the archives, and research Gmail's track record. Because from what the Bee remembers, this isnt exactly the first time. Here is what the Bee discovered after his sojourn in the time machine.
Googleappsbuzz, as the name suggests, is designed for anyone who is interested in Google Apps, especially for businesses - users, potential users, experts or just lay geeks who can't get enough of Google Apps. This site will bring you up to the minute opinions, news, reviews, expert reviews, resources, articles, how-tos, videos on the subject.
The Google Bee (that's me) would love to get your feedback, or hear from you if you think your resource deserves to be included in the site. You can contact me at gb (at) googleappsbuzz (dot) com.
