Category Archives: Google

The Google Apps Value Prop, Part II

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@hientran hit me up following my original post on The Google Apps Value Proposition. He considered my omission of Google Video and video chat in Google Talk big oversights. So I’m back today to bring you those two pieces to the Google Apps puzzle.

Video
I wasn’t totally surprised by the announcement that Google was made that they have discontinued the ability for the general public to upload video to Google Video, what with YouTube and all. I was also not surprised to see that Google is re-focusing Google Video into an Apps application. It’s really quite brilliant. You can share videos with specific people, or with the public. I could go on and tell you how you can use it, or I can just let you watch how Google uses it.

Video Chat
I can totally see why why @hientran says this is a “cherry on top” feature. I’ll just quote him:

Videochat inside gmail has been great for our org, I can see / talk to my team from without needing to fire up skype or ichat

T

However, there are three things that keep this from being a killer feature for me.

  • Not everyone in my org, or who I chat with, has a video camera on their computer
  • I already have iChat and Skype running
  • It’s web only, so even if you run the official Google Talk app on Windows, it still doesn’t work

That said, if you have a video camera, and don’t already use other chat protocols, then this can be an excellent tool for your organization. And because it is Google, you’ll be able to video chat with anybody who also uses a Google-based web chat — Gmail or another Google Apps account.

The Google Apps Value Prop

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If you follow me on Twitter, you know that I’ve been doing quite a bit with Google Apps recently. One of them is a non-profit that I’m associated with. The friend I’m working with on that (who works at the NPO) asked me today for some “talking points for selling all these services.”

I shot him a quick reply, closing it with a statement about needing to write a blog post about the value proposition of using Google Apps. That question has been rolling through my brain all day long, and it’s time to put thought to keyboard.

Context warning: this is related to this specific org, where they may/will migrate email from a hosted Exchange solution. They are also using Basecamp for project management and collaboration tasks. I will try to make it as generic as possible so as to make it more widely relevant to the broader public.

Email
When looking at replacing Exchange with Gmail, I always come back to one argument … lock-in. With Exchange you are locked into Outlook for a desktop client, and IE for the web version. Any other desktop client — including Entourage — is a second class citizen, IMHO. Same goes for your growing market share of non-IE browsers. Outlook Web Access on anything but IE is pure trash. And if you want good mobile access to your email you are limited to Active Sync devices, or paying for a Blackberry solution.

With Gmail you get an excellent webmail client, whatever your browser of choice. If you want to stay on a desktop client, take your pick, because Google supports them all. Google has also developed an array of mobile access methods, ranging from applications you install on your Java-enabled phone, to push messaging to iPhones.

Calendar
Comparing Exchange’s calendar to Google’s calendar is pretty even. They both allow you to request appointments with other people. They both allow you to check other people’s availability so you can know when to schedule that appointment. They both allow you to share your calendar with other people in your organization, with view or editing rights. Google separates itself from Exchange on two fronts.

First, back on the mobile train. Again, Exchange limits you to Active Sync or BES. Google allows you to wirelessly sync your phone’s calendar for most types of phone. The list includes Android, Blackberry, iPhone, Nokia, Sony Ericsson, and Windows Mobile.

Second, with Exchange you are limited to sharing your calendar within your organization. With Google you can share your calendar with anyone who has a Google Account. For example, I have a work GCal, my wife has a personal GCal, and we have a shared family GCal. I can go to one place and see all of my calendar stuff. To achieve that with Exchange involves a whole lot of synchronizing stuff using various web services — free and pay-for.

Chat
Some people will like this, some won’t. Some people will use it, some won’t. I instant message with my colleagues all day long. My wife is always a short message away from me, and me from her. This one has been in the personal user space for a long time, but is just now being used as a corporate communication tool. I think if more organizations endorsed IM as a valid tool for their employees to use, it would grow in use rapidly. Microsoft doesn’t have a chat client for Exchange, so there is no real comparison here.

Docs
Comparing Google to Basecamp, Docs goes squarely up against Writeboards. They both provide similar functionality, in shared editing of documents. Docs moves ahead because it allows for real-time shared editing, where Writeboards do not allow this.

Beyond word processing, Docs brings you online collaboration on spreadsheets and presentations. It gets my geekiness all excited when I’m sharing a spreadsheet with a handful of other people, watching real-time as the edits are happening. For me, the shared spreadsheets makes Google Apps 110% worth it. With Basecamp, you are relegated to uploading new versions of files, for people to then download locally.

I will say this, if you are a Microsoft Office “power user” — deep into macros, and obscure Excel functions — then you will not view Docs as your total solution, which it isn’t. Don’t discount Docs though, because Google continues to add functionality, and spreadsheet functions, to Docs. It will only get more powerful over time.

Sites
To be perfectly fair, this comparison is a stretch, since Sites is a wiki solution that can be shaped in a project management fashion, and Basecamp is a true project management solution. On with the comparisons, though. Beyond Writeboards, Basecamp gives you messages, to-dos, milestones, chat, time, and files. Their format. Their logic. Their rules. Basecamp just works, and it works very well.

Sites, because it is a wiki, is not limited to project management like Basecamp. Sites can be molded to what you need it to be. Sites can be public, with public edit rights, and they can be private — locked down to a handful of collaborators. You can create lists, where you determine the data fields to track. You can create message logs. You can link in external web pages. You can link in other Google Apps items, such as docs, spreadsheets, calendars, and more.

Closing
I know there is more that I can say about this. I’ll try to sum it up in a nice package for you all. Google Apps gives you all of the same functionality as you get in Microsoft Exchange, and more. Google Apps gives you all of the same functionality as you get in Basecamp, and more. Google will do this for you for free, with the Standard Edition of Google Apps. If the standard edition just isn’t enough for your company, for $50 a year per user you can get the Premier Edition, which gives you more functionality. And if you work for a school or non-profit, you can sign-up for the Education Edition for free, which is comparable to the Premier Edition.

One last thing. While all of these Google services are 100% web-based, many of these services (not all), have the ability to go offline with Google Gears. If you’re about to get on a plane, you can sync your email, calendar, or documents locally, and sync back up when you have connectivity again. I’m a non-traveling desk jockey, so that rates lower on my useful-to-me scale.

Update 3/26/2009 8:00 PDT – @hientran points out that I have omitted Google Video and Video Chat in Google Talk. I will do a follow-up on those two services specifically, hopefully tonight.

Quick(silver) Search Box

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I saw the announcement come through yesterday for the “developer preview” of the new Google Quick Search Box for the Mac. I immediately downloaded it and started working with it, not fully knowing what to expect.

My initial response: wow, this could replace Quicksilver. For being a dev preview it seems quite impressive already. I did hear from a friend that it kept crashing on his computer, but it seems to be working just fine on mine.

A lot of the actions seem very similar to what you get with Quicksilver. At this point you don’t have any triggering or plugin capabilities, but from an application launcher standpoint, it is very nice. And it has the benefit of being a Google tool, where you can enter your Google account information, from multiple Google accounts, and it will index your Gmail, Docs, etc.

Then I saw this post about QSB today from Macworld, and it all made sense as I was reading the comments. Stated in comment number 2, referring to Nicholas Jitkoff, one of the devs working on QSB:

Nicholas is the guy that did Quicksilver, so this is the future if you are a Quicksilver fan.

Yep, I’m on board.

Another Good Product From Google

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I’ve recently seen various write-ups about Google Notebook, so I decided to take a look at it. I must say I was pretty happy with what I found. I’ll give the caveat that this is in no way a perfect product, nor fully featured…yet. There were, however, a few features of it that make it a good solution for me right now with keeping track of ideas.

There is a Firefox plugin that places a nice Notebook window in your status bar (image below). With this plugin you don’t have to visit the Notebook website to actually use it — very slick. You can show and hide the plugin window as you choose.

Google Notebook Firefox Plugin
(click for a full screen image)

If you look at the photo you will see two little yellow/orange people next to “Work Screencast Ideas.” That signifies that I’ve shared that Notebook with other people. In this case, I’ve shared it with Bren so we can collaborate on ideas for screencasts to do for our staff. I’m all about collaboration stuff, and this is a great feature to have.

Another thing that makes this a good product for me is that it is — as all Google products — web based. I have a computer at home, and a different computer at work. I needed a solution that didn’t have me tied to one computer. And even if I’m working on some random computer without the plugin, I can still get to my stuff.

Lastly, with the Firefox plugin, if you highlight a section of text on a web page you are presented with a button right below the highlight to add a note using that highlighted text. When you use this it adds the note to your last open Notebook.

Google Reader Update

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I was just having troubles getting into Google Reader to check my feeds, and once I was able to get in I noticed something different right away.

Google Reader Refresh Button

There used to be a Refresh link at the bottom of the subscriptions section of the page, next to the Manage Subscriptions link. This button at the top of the subscriptions section is brand new. When you click on it the text changes to “Refreshing” and the button is grayed out until the refresh is finished.

Google Reader Refresh Button

This change is at the top of the posts section. Another great modification. This refresh updates the list of posts for the subscription group you are viewing.

This is a minor change, but a beneficial one. I didn’t like the Refresh link being at the bottom, and now it shows the status of the refresh process, too.

EDIT: I completely looked over another new feature, that I’ve just been playing with. In the first photo you see “Show: updated – all”. This toggles between showing you all of your feeds and folders, and only those feeds and folders that have unread content. This was a nice all-around update by Google.

UPDATE: The feature I failed to see in my initial haste to get this post out (read the EDIT just above this) is the new feature that I’m enjoying the most. I’ve got it set to show the updated feeds only, and it feels like my browsing is quicker. Completely subjective and non-scientific, but it still counts for something.

Google Apps Premier Edition

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Google — whether they admit it or not — is aiming directly at Microsoft’s hold on office suite software. They announced today that they will offer a “Premier Edition” of their Google Apps software to companies for an annual fee of $50 per seat.

The fee-based version, Google Apps Premier Edition, includes five times more e-mail storage — 10 gigabytes per e-mail box — as well as a guarantee that all services will be available 99.9 percent of the time with around-the-clock technical support. Google also is adding mobile access to e-mail accounts through the BlackBerry devices that tether workers to their offices.

I use GApps for my personal stuff. GMail offers to open .DOC and .XLS attachments in Google Docs, which I’m beginning to use that more and more instead of downloading and opening in Word or Excel. I’ve been amazed at the simplicity of the GApps interfaces, and that the applications are really full featured.

In an office/professional setting I don’t know if I’m sold on the idea. Part of me feels that I would miss the “functionality” that comes with MS Office. Although, I have a coworker that just recently switched to a MacBook Pro, and his one concern going in was that he would miss Outlook. He said he hasn’t even thought about it. Maybe this is the same type of thing, where I think I’d miss it (perhaps a little brainwashing on Microsoft’s part) but in actuality I wouldn’t even notice it because I’d be so happy with the new product.

What are your thoughts on this announcement? Is there a piece of software they are missing before this will become a really viable alternative to MS Office (I know, Presently has been rumored)?

EDIT – I completely overlooked the Blackberry bit from the quote above. For those working in SMBs, does the promise of mobile access (at a much reduced price) give serious traction to this when compared to the Exchange/Blackberry combination?