Will Google Apps Woo Enterprises?

By Michelle Savage

August 15, 2008 —  (Page 1 of 5)
Google Apps has fully extended its reach from consumers to enterprises, but is it the end-all, be-all answer to enterprise groupware? Some experts say that the low cost of Google Apps doesn’t outweigh the security and privacy risks it brings to an enterprise, while others believe Google’s future is bright in the enterprise market.

Today, many companies are using or at least experimenting with cloud-based Google Apps, including Gmail, Google Talk, Google Calendar and Google Docs. “There are now more than 500,000 businesses using Google Apps and more than 3,000 new ones are signing up every day,” said Andrew Kovacs, a spokesperson for Google. Valeo, an automotive supplier, now has 32,000 users using Google Apps, including Gmail, Calendar and Docs, and the Government of Washington, D.C. recently moved 38,000 users to Google Apps.

Rajen Sheth, senior product manager at Google, said that more and more enterprises are weighing the benefits against the concerns and finding that Google Apps is a viable solution for companies of all sizes. “The biggest benefit for enterprises is that they can just turn it on and not worry about the infrastructure,” he said. “The biggest challenge is that it is a very different model, and enterprises are not used to storing data outside their firewall. Getting used to that model and thinking of things in a new way are probably the biggest challenges.”

But some experts are concerned that far greater challenges exist. Josh Greenbaum, industry analyst at Enterprise Applications Consulting, believes that Google Apps comes with far too many compliance, availability and data integrity risks to be taken seriously by enterprises. “Fundamentally, Google Apps has an enormous security hole in the model that makes it impossible for these solutions to replace desktop tools,” said Greenbaum. “Gmail is one example. Google is scanning the content of your mailbox and popping up ads that are relevant to your content. This can’t be in compliance with decent privacy models and regulations.”

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