TalkinCloud already told you how the search giant used its Google Atmosphere enterprise event to launch phone support and mobile device management. But Microsoft can’t let Google have anything resembling a victory, and took the occasion to write a rambling blog entry trashing Google Apps for Business with the provocative title, Google Atmosphere or ‘Admosphere’?
As you may guess from that name, Microsoft is pursuing a similar line of attack as the infamous “Gmail Man” propaganda film of earlier 2011. You can read the full Microsoft blog entry if you’d like, but here’s the breakdown of its main points:
- Google is in the advertising business, not the enterprise productivity business, and the savvy CIO knows to go with Microsoft, which has a proven track record and won’t jettison its Office 365 suite at the first sign of trouble.
- Google uses a new, unfamiliar interface that users have to go through costly training and tack on additional services to take full advantage. Meanwhile, Microsoft Office 365 uses the same familiar interface and services that users have been familiarizing themselves with over the span of the last 20 years.
- Google doesn’t have privacy as a core value, while Microsoft has security and privacy built into the design for all its applications.
- Google often adds and removes features out from under users with no warning. Microsoft makes sure to keep customers and partners in the loop when rolling out functionalities. This one is especially lame: Google’s scheduled release track was designed specifically with this complaint in mind.
- Google doesn’t support the offline experience enough for the modern workforce. Microsoft, in the meanwhile, is all about offline.
I’m not going to argue the specific criticisms I haven’t already, mainly because there’s at least a ring of truth to all of them. And even beyond what Microsoft mentioned here, Google Apps has other problems — its partner program, for example, remains immature.
But here’s the thing: Google has been systematically improving the Google Apps offering, seemingly every week, bit by bit.
Meanwhile, Microsoft Office 365 has completely failed to impress me, with a dedication to the same desktop roots that dragged BPOS down. Even Gartner thinks Gmail has a solid chance of eating into Microsoft Exchange’s market share. In the final analysis, Google may fall short in some key areas, but it’s trying really hard to innovate. What’s Microsoft’s excuse?
The 
Office 365 is a total failure.
Bing is a total failure.
Hotmail is a total failure.
IE is a total failure.
Win 7 is a total failure.
Vista is a total failure.
Zune is a total failure.
WebTv is a total failure.
Tablets are a total failure.
Passport is a total failure.
Windows Spaces is a total failure.
.net is a total failure.
Virtual Earth is a total failure.
MSN is a total failure.
Live Maps is a total failure.
[[[ 95% failure rating]]]
Former,
TalkinCloud welcomes constructive criticism and healthy debate in our comment areas. But how about sharing some stats/proof points to back up all your claims? YEs, offerings like Zune failed. But…
1. Windows 7 seems to be very well received by the market.
2. Office 365 is less than six months old. Far too early to label it a failure.
3. You fail to mention fast-growing business applications like Dynamics, Lync, SharePoint…
It’s easy to take shots at Microsoft, especially when you post anonymous comments. But please back up the claims with stats rather than sweeping generalizations.
-jp
The main issue today is many Google projects ran as separate projects and they are just now trying to bring them together. You can definitely see the lack of response from support channel and on the web if you visit their forums. I can speak to the lack of APIs. A lot of things that people are asking for go without any official answers, don’t exist, poorly documented or just simply in “beta” or “labs”.
Google Apps is definitely innovating, no question there, the main problem that I see is they are doing it in a vacuum. Sure the MSP industry is definitely behind from where Google is but you almost get the sense that they really do think they are smarter than the industry. Partner needs are definitely not all being met. At IT Nation last week, if you stopped by the Google Apps booth you would find the lack of presence and lack of anyone interested in doing anything with the MSP community outside of what you can find on the web site. They had very little involvement in the MSP community and really didn’t seem interested in talking (not the usual sales pitch you’d see in most booths at a trade show). The bottom line is they are still outsiders and that needs to change.
I see a lot of positive coming out of there. It’s really great stuff, in fact, I am a Google Apps user. Looks like with the call centers and the recent news coming out of Google is things are turning around but they definitely have a lot of work to do.
On the other hand, I wouldn’t count Microsoft out of the game just yet in terms of innovation with Office 365. The people at Microsoft I’ve spoken to definitely have some great technology planned but they are doing it the usual Microsoft pace (and maybe that’s right in terms of documentation, betas, ..) Wave 14 was a major release and I know there is a lot more planned that is really what people are asking for. I definitely don’t think you can count MS out here just yet. Once they add the PaaS features of Google Apps to Office 365 (powered by Windows Azure) we’ll need to have this conversation again.
ao
Alex O: We’re on the same page. Critics would be crazy to count Microsoft and Office 365 out of the game… though Microsoft has been really quiet when it comes to Office 365 deployment figures, especially those involving partners.
Side note: Strange, but I’m not really sure if Office 365 is “powered” by Windows Azure. But Talkin’ Cloud will be sure to ask Microsoft about during our next conversation.
-jp
Seriously, what people don’t understand is that Google runs all their servers off a single Image. They lack the ability to not Scan data. I have seen this when an enterprise customers request that their data not be scanned and they were unable to provide this in the SLA. Their response is “well you won’t see ads” but they still scan ALL data!
Google’s mission is to organize the worlds information, any enterprise willing to trust their crown jewels to the worlds largest data mining company is insane.