The problem: Microsoft dominates in workplace software. Google’s solution: Offer a competing product virally through employees so companies are forced to adopt it. Google’s new Apps Team Edition is cool enough that it just might work.
Digital Journal – Leave it to Google to come up with an innovative way to get its foot in the business application world: Go after employees rather than their IT departments. The company has launched a new Team Edition as part of its Google Apps, including the ability to create and share documents, spreadsheets, presentations, arrange meetings and schedules, instant message, make PC-to-PC calls for free and all of it is stored online for access anywhere.
Google’s big problem, however, is this is Microsoft’s playground and it is unquestionably the king of the jungle gym. So what is a Google to do when it wants to claim some of the sandbox for itself? Use the power of the people.
Google’s new Team Edition has been targeted at people in the workplace or students rather than IT departments and managers who are less likely to make a major office software change. The whole idea here is to make employees everywhere love and crave the suite of services, thus forcing their companies to adopt it. And it very well could work.
Google has a great set of online tools, but IT departments have been nervous about adopting them for fear of sensitive documents being shared with the outside world. Recognizing that concern, Google created Google Apps and has given administrators control to shut down or disable services and control how documents are shared.
Image: Courtesy Google
The suite of services will be available Thursday for free and it’s being targeted at employees — a smart move because many people hate bothering or waiting for their IT departments to get involved. In other cases, smaller companies don’t even have IT departments so Google is offering all these business services.
Google has seen about half a million small organizations sign-up to use Google Apps so far. Google has also built-in a button so an IT department can upgrade to a paid version if it learns a large number of its employees are using the services. IT departments have to implement the change because its services get linked to an Internet domain belonging to the company.
The free Team Edition can be upgraded to other editions like Education (free) and Premier ($50 per user, per year).
To get started with Team Edition, simply visit Google Apps and enter your email address. Google will tell you if anyone else from within your company has signed up already (it knows based on your email address — @digitaljournal.com, for example). If nobody from your company has signed up, you can invite them to join.
The tools available through Google’s Team Edition make it a lot like Facebook, as you can share, collaborate and send documents to others in your network.
Google’s move is also completely opposite to Microsoft’s approach, as Microsoft works to develop relationships with the IT departments to muscle its way in through key decision makers. It’s a main reason why Microsoft has been successful, but Google’s approach brings with it a lot of potential to compete, and compete well.
The world now has to wait and see if the marketing idea is smart enough to work. Google still faces the problem of habit, as people are used to going to a store and buying a box of software. Many believe you can’t get good quality software any other way, and Microsoft Word, Excel, PowerPoint, etc. are great programs, so many people aren’t interested in trying anything else.
Also, many companies get nervous at the idea of their documents being hosted on Google servers rather than those that are in-house, and it’s unlikely those fears will change. There are countless companies out there who would never use Google’s web-based services for this reason, but there are a huge number of companies that might consider it. If Google can at least take some market share from Microsoft, the operation will be a success.
Google Apps Team Edition has great potential in colleges and universities, as it’s costly for post-secondary institutions to develop and implement this technology on their own. Many universities have already adopted Google’s Gmail service as their choice for an email provider, and it’s within those organizations where Google Apps Team Edition could provide a cost-effective solution for doc sharing and collaboration.
Google has an uphill battle in changing a well-established industry. Victory could be a long way off (or never) but Google is certainly not going to give up without a good ol’ fashioned marketing fight.
To see a quick demo of Google’s Team Edition, check out this video:
