IT has gone through tremendous changes and will continue to spell more in coming years. Gone are those days when enterprises have to satiate with PC based applications in absence of alternative options. The scenario has changed drastically and the credit goes to the giant – Google.

No doubt, leaders did already exist in the realm of cloud computing but real momentum was built by Google’s entry. Google has redefined the terminology for those who were aliens to the concept and made it relatively easier for them to get nexus with the concept. In gist, Google redefined the concept and developed applications that made migration easier for users from pre installed applications to cloud based services.

CIOs: Thinking for Cloud Computing

Moreover, Google’s strength stream has forced changes in the mindset of IT administrators and higher management people including CIOs. The new openness to alternative options such as Google’s email suite or other cloud computing applications has drastically reduced the hassle of PC based applications and other dependence on integrated applications.

Enterprises have started thinking seriously for cloud based services as what could be sought from the data figures. Cloud computing markets were at $36 billion in 2008 and are expected to reach $160.2 billion by 2015. But giving it a deeper thought – Are really Google Apps right choice for enterprise use?

Google Apps: a good alternative

Google Apps are rigorous and offers businesses to collaborate with an easy access from any part of the world but still something is absent – they lack hard core functionality of enterprise usage and do not fit to their provisions. Google Apps do contain robust features but they are not robust enough to appeal to enterprise use. For instance, archiving mails is a part of Google Apps but it does not offer the provision of archiving or managing the documents such as spreadsheets.

No doubts, Google’s model of working are flexible and morphs according to the user’s requirements but somehow it lacks the feature until the users do not ask for it. Also, the ease of working on the same doc jointly on two different machines is altogether a different experience which users lack on Microsoft Word. The collaborative capabilities and seamless connectivity always enjoy the upper hand but still in Enterprise segment it seems that Microsoft will continue to rule the roost with its enterprise applications.

Cons for Google Apps in Enterprise Usages

Besides seamless connectivity and collaborative capabilities that Google Apps are offering, the one major concern is the credibility. If servers for the vendor go off, many businesses will ruin; the instance has happened several times and the biggest ever was when Gmail was not working for long 100 minutes two months back. On September 1, Gmail suffered global outage and the reason cited by Google was overload as it backed off some servers for routine maintenance. After knowing the bug within several minutes, it took almost 100 minutes for Gmail team to reinstate the services; in enterprises segment these outages can cast blunders.

However, the debate could be concluded by summarizing that until cloud computing offers rock-solid certainty, Microsoft and IBM will lead the enterprise applications offerings.  

Renu Singh/ITVoir Network